


Homecoming

by N7Wildcat



Series: What Happens to Tomorrow [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Mild Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N7Wildcat/pseuds/N7Wildcat
Summary: Sequel to WHTT. A year after Kelly's sudden departure from National City her family is still reeling. Maggie unable to move on, wanting to bring her daughter back home, Alex firm in her belief that Kelly will return when she's ready. Each of them are struggling with their own demons. Eventually it will bring them all back together.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Series: What Happens to Tomorrow [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796848
Comments: 19
Kudos: 28





	1. Long Journey Home

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand we're back. This story is going to be a bit shorter than WHTT but chapters will be longer in general. Each chapter is going to focus on a different character (Like Maggie and Alex or Lena and Kara). So this chapter started off simple and then stuff happened. I like it but I feel like I could have done better. Updates will vary because I'm currently working 2 jobs so bare with me. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

Kelly sat on the ledge of the building, vigilant over the city she had wound up in. For over a year she had been hunting Warden having learned of the Photokinetics return to Earth-Prime. It had been the most difficult year of her life having left her family with only a note to her mother saying she needed space, needed time to think; to figure out who she was. She knew they must hate her for disappearing without a trace. It hurt to think about, but catching Warden was her priority. She had answers Kelly needed to know, and maybe here, clear on the other side of the world she would finally get them. Thorul had disappeared completely, she hadn’t returned to Earth-Prime since they had taken down her men and Warden. She wasn’t much of a concern, with Donovan dead and Warden still angry for being tossed aside, Thorul had nothing.

Underneath her a soft _whurr_ rose up from her prosthetic leg as she adjusted her positioning. Her aunt would kill her if she knew how badly she was taking care of the Luthor tech. It was supposed to be serviced every few months to ensure it was working properly, but with her refusal to return to National City until Warden was in custody maintenance had fallen way behind. She flexed her mechanical toes inside of the boot, feeling nothing more than the tensing of muscles in her thigh. Even the most advanced Luthor tech (that wasn’t even available to the public just a select few) didn’t have the technology for her to have feeling in the artificial limb, but maybe that was a good thing.

In the distance over the skyline of bright city lights was a red trail of light that caught Kelly’s eye. _There you are…_ Kelly pulled on her helmet before dropping off the ledge and taking flight. Warden wouldn’t get away from her this time, she would make sure of it. Kelly flew as fast as she could to catch up with Warden. Once she had caught up she would use her own kinesis to bring Warden to the ground.

If Warden heard her she showed no response. Kelly used it to her advantage, flying over top the other kinetic, grabbing the back of her shirt, twisting so they were reversed and using the weight she had on the other woman to force them back towards the ground. Warden fought to escape Kelly’s grip, but Kelly was far stronger, she didn’t release Warden until they we ten feet from the ground, throwing her as hard as she could into the dirt. Warden rolled onto her back to look up at Kelly.

“Why am I not surprised?” Warden growled spitting out blood.

“Did you really think I would let you disappear,” Kelly asked. “You nearly killed Supergirl, you hurt my parents and you took my leg. One of us was always going to hunt you down, I just happened to be the one to find you.”

“So what now?” Warden growled. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No, first you’re going to give me some answers and then I’m turning you in to the DEO,” Kelly said.

“What makes you think I’ll cooperate?”

Kelly took ahold of Warden’s shirt pulling the older woman to her. “Because you have no other choice.” She yanked Warden to her feet, quickly attaching a dampener to the other kinetic to subdue her powers. They had a long walk ahead of them and Kelly had no intention of making it pleasant. “The sooner you start talking, the sooner you can start the next chapter of your life, rotting in a cell.” She shoved Warden forward urging her to start walking. The city was hours away, plenty of time for Warden to get her story straight.

Warden stumbled. They had been walking for what felt like hours. She didn’t understand why Flare was making them walk, the end goal was the same it shouldn’t have mattered how quickly they got there. Of course Flare was looking for answers that Warden didn’t have. Thorul had only ever given her so much information. Nothing she gave Flare would satisfy her, so why give her anything?

“What do you think you’ll gain from this?” Warden was curious, she had thought Flare would have given up on following her. “I don’t have the answers you want.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kelly said shoving Warden forward. “You have answers, even if they aren’t to my questions.”

“Fine,” Warden said crossing her arms. “Can we at least sit? If you’re going to drag this out at least let me sit.”

Kelly was allowing Warden some freedom since her powers were suppressed but her patience only went so far. Warden was a warrior, a woman who had nearly taken down two highly trained agents, two Kryptonians and a Photokinetic and yet she was acting like she didn’t have care in the world. Like she wasn’t being held prisoner by the woman who bested her.

“No we keep moving,” Kelly said. “Believe it or not I have other places to be.”

“Right…”

Warden glanced at Kelly before stumbling forcing Kelly to catch her. _Heroes…_ she thought. _So gullible…_ Warden twisted in Kelly’s grasp, catching her off guard. Kelly had no time to dodge as Warden’s fist hit her square in the jaw. She released Warden, her hand going to her face as she stepped away from her. The shock only lasted for a brief second before it morphed into anger. Warden held her smirk for only a fraction of a second longer before she faltered. She cried out in pain, cradling her hand to her chest.

“What the hell are you?” she shouted. “You broke my hand!”

“In case you forgot, you moron, I have Haranel in my blood,” Kelly said her voice growing dangerously low.

“Why have I never felt this pain before?” Warden was genuinely confused. Flare had been strong when they fought, nearly as strong as a Kryptonian, but not strong enough that Warden had struggled.

“Your powers are suppressed, which includes your healing factor,” Kelly said. “So every time one of us hits one another, you’re going to feel everything, while I feel nothing.”

Kelly grabbed Warden’s shirt collar lifting her effortlessly off the ground. She smirked at the fear she saw in Warden’s eyes. _Oh how the mighty have fallen._ She wasn’t going to hurt Warden, not really. But she wanted to scare the kinetic. She wanted to make her understand that Kelly was holding all the power. Warden kicked at her but couldn’t land a blow.

“I need you to understand I hold all the power here,” Kelly said setting Warden back on her feet. “I don’t want to hurt you, that isn’t who I am. But I will if you don’t cooperate. So what will it be Warden?”

She held out her hand. Everyone deserved a chance at redemption, Kelly had discovered that after a year of being on her own. Warden had been a pawn. Thorul had used her to get what she wanted Warden hadn’t had the strength to break free of Thorul’s control. But now, having been abandoned by the woman she gave everything to, Warden had a choice and Kelly was willing to give her an opportunity to redeem herself.

Warden glanced between Kelly’s outstretched hand and her face, trying to read what the younger woman was thinking. It was strange to face her like this, completely powerless and well without the intent on killing her. She had never really looked at Flare, before she had only ever seen her as an enemy but now she was seeing a fearless individual. One who had only become stronger after nearly losing her life protecting those she loved. Warden smiled, not her usual murderous grin, but a genuine smile. She reached out taking the hand Kelly offered her giving it a firm shake.

“Alright kid, I’ll humor you,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

XXXXX

Warden was lucky that Kelly had hunted her down in the middle of the summer. She had lost all her armor during their fight a year ago and had never bothered to replace it. Her uniform had been downgraded to a pair of black cargo pants, a black compression tee and a very thin jacket. Had it been winter she would have frozen to death but here she was at least comfortable. It was strange to be sitting across from the one who had once been her enemy. Especially since Kelly wasn’t in her armor either, gone was the red and teal monstrosity of an Nth metal suit and in its place a much more subtle uniform. Warden guessed it must be her security uniform from L-Corp mostly because of the bold double lined L on the shirt and pant leg.

“I guess we should start from the beginning,” Kelly said stretching her arms over her head. “Why were you so loyal to Thorul?”

That wasn’t an easy question to answer. Thorul had saved her from a cult when her parents had tried to brainwash her in the teachings of the group. Part of her had been grateful that someone had rescued her and she had pledged herself to her savior. There was more to it than that once Thorul took her in she was trapped, just like with the cult but with the illusion of a caring parental figure. Warden had been young, barely out of her teens and very impressionable. Thorul’s words had spoken to her, at one point they had made sense, but then Thorul had started to hurt people and eventually she gave Warden the order to kill Supergirl and Superman which Warden had been unable to disobey. After that she had completely fallen into place as the Warden of her Earth, never questioning Thorul’s decisions again.

Warden sighed. “She saved me from the Cult of Rao, I owed her my life, and I gave it to her.” She had never felt ashamed of her decision until that moment, speaking to the one she had nearly killed. At the time she had been firm in her decision to join Thorul. Her plan had been sound, Thorul had wanted to stop the spread of the Cult of Rao. What started as a crusade for freedom turned into a quest for complete domination. Then Thorul found Donovan, and her sights had been set on Kelly, for seventeen years they planned their move to corrupt the kid, only to fail. She should have escaped long before Flare had even been in their sights. She should have run when Lillian Thorul had given her the order to kill the Kryptonians.

“How long was I part of Thorul’s plan from the time you joined her?”

Kelly was starting to realize that Warden had been so brainwashed by Thorul that running away had never truly been an option for her. She could see it in the way Warden hesitated, giving as little information as possible but also giving enough to satisfy Kelly. There was more Warden wasn’t telling her but she wouldn’t pry it clearly hurt to talk about.

“Thorul didn’t even mention Donovan for about six months. That’s when we first visited I remember seeing you then, so completely helpless,” Warden took a deep breath staring up at the stars. “I never would have imagined that you would be the one to take me down.”

“Do you know anything about my mother? My birth mother I mean, or would Thorul know anything?”

Warden shook her head. Whoever Kelly’s biological mother was she had been long gone by the time Warden and Thorul came around. Donovan had never spoken of either of his marriages, at least not to her, she had no idea how much he had shared with Thorul. It was clear to her now that his relationship with her boss had been a lot deeper than she originally thought. Why she waited seventeen years to spring him from prison Warden had no idea.

“No, she was never mentioned. And I doubt Thorul would tell you if she did know anything.”

Kelly didn’t know exactly what she had expected, she should have guessed that Warden wouldn’t have any information about her mother. It had been a long shot any way. It also didn’t matter her mother had either abandoned her by choice or she had been killed by Donovan. Knowing or not knowing didn’t make a difference to her it just would have been nice to have some information, some reason as to why she had been left alone.

“Look kid…” Warden paused closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before meeting Kelly’s gaze. “I can’t tell you why Thorul targeted you because she never told me. I was her Warden, her enforcer and she didn’t trust me with anything.”

“Then what can you give me?” Kelly shouted her eyes flashing golden yellow. Light rose around them seemingly from nowhere before exploding into the ground.

Warden scrambled back narrowly avoiding being hit by one of whips of light. The amount of power Kelly contained was terrifying. Had Flare realized her full potential before their final fight they probably wouldn’t be sitting there now. Warden had felt that kind of power too, a long time ago when she was still with the cult. It had sent fire through her veins, shutting off everything else, she hadn’t felt pain or much of anything. But Thorul had drained her of that strength years of psychological manipulation had left her as a shell of who she once was but Kelly still had that raw energy and had yet to harness it.

“Calm down,” Warden said.

“What did you say?”

“Calm down.”

Kelly glanced up at the sky just in time to see a red bolt of light racing for her. She barely managed to jump out of the way, pulling the light from around her too her, it wrapped around her like it was alive. Warden stared at her as she ripped the dampener from her neck, drawing some blood. Kelly launched herself at Warden sending a rope of light out to wrap around Warden’s arm.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kelly shouted pulling on the rope forcing Warden off of her feet. The other kinetic came flying at her unable to control her path. Once she was within range Kelly hit her with an uppercut.

The force was enough to make Warden flip head over heels. She hit she ground digging her hands and feet into the dirt to stop her from tumbling any more. The rocks tore at her hands, breaking one of her fingers. He bones had already started to heal as she rose, reaching behind her for her axes. Her hands wrapped around nothing, she cursed under her breath, how could she forget she had lost both her weapons? She would have to use inferior weapons to fight Kelly, but they would have to do. When she brought her hands back in front of her two axes formed out of solid light. Warden hadn’t used her powers to form solid light in years, her axes were much stronger, more balanced, but it didn’t mean she had forgotten how to use them.

Kelly had her own weapons, two blade like protrusions made from kinetic light, jutting out from her forearms. She was much less intimidating without her teal and red armor, but Warden wasn’t going to underestimate her. Kelly had won both their fights as much as she hated to admit it. Of course she had been trying to protect people she cared about. Maybe with that factor removed they would stand on equal ground.

“Come at me,” Warden challenged digging her heels into the dirt.

She had learned that sprinting into combat only ever resulted in injury. She had been bitten so bad it took hours for her shoulder to heal, she had been stabbed and she had lost her leg all because she had been too hasty in combat. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be baited into attacking without a plan.

Kelly circled around Warden slowly, formulating her plan. During their last fight Warden had been shot, stabbed and punched by a Kryptonian. She was slower than she was back then. Her wounds probably hadn’t healed properly. If Kelly could land a hit on her side it may take Warden down. She had her own weakness to worry about, her leg could easily be disabled if Warden hit it in the right place. It hadn’t been serviced in a year and the joints were starting to lock up on occasion. She was hedging her bets that Warden was unaware of her upgrade. She had no idea that how badly her leg had been injured. She couldn’t see how it functioned.

Warden had gotten tired of waiting and once she realized Kelly wasn’t going to take the bait she started towards her. Her axe connected with Kelly’s blades sending sparks of red and gold scattering around them. Kelly shoved upwards as hard as she could, forcing Warden away from her. She took advantage of the fact Warden was off balance, lunging at her, ducking under one of the red axes. The blade disappeared from her hand, she wanted to hurt Warden not kill her. Warden had no time to react before Kelly’s fist connected with her side, right where she had been stabbed a year ago.

Kelly knew that the hit had hurt a lot. Warden buckled over in pain holding her side tightly. She had no time to react before Kelly round-house kicked her in the shoulder sending her sprawling onto the ground. The blade returned to her arms as she approached Warden. She felt that pull again, it was something deep down that kept rearing its head trying to break free. As Warden started to get to her knees Kelly jumped on her slamming her back into the ground.

Warden yelped when the two kinetic blades punctured the ground inches from her face. She felt ropes of light begin to wrap around her limbs attempting to pin her to the ground. She struggled but Kelly was on her back holding her in place.

“I have had enough,” Kelly said her voice becoming dangerously low. “I was being nice not restraining you, I can see my mistake.”

“Fuck you,” Warden shouted red light pooling around her. It exploded outward with such force it sent Kelly flying back, crashing into the ground. “I’m done losing to you. I’m done coming in second. I am done being nothing more than a pawn.”

Kelly laughed. She hadn’t meant to and she wasn’t sure where it had come from, but she laughed. It was funny to her, that the whole reason Warden was fighting her this time was a bruised ego. Kelly had never wanted to push Warden out of Thorul’s good graces, it had just happened that way. Nothing she had ever done had been to spite Warden, it had been to protect her family. If Warden couldn’t understand that she was denser than Kelly had thought.

“All you ever had to do was walk away,” Kelly said once she stopped laughing. “But you chose to stay and fight. I’m not giving you any mercy.”

“You’d let me walk away?”

“No, you need to be in DEO custody,” Kelly said.

“Then we fight until one of us loses.”

“Can’t you just come quietly?” Kelly knew the answer would be no but she figured she might as well try. “I’m really fucking tired.”

“I think we’ve already established that’s not going to happen.”

Just like that they were throwing punches again. Streaks of red and yellow lit up the night sky as the two collided. A constant back and forth of traded blows. When one of them landed a hit the other followed suit a few moments later. It didn’t take long for both of them to start to wear down. Kelly’s knee locked in place just as Warden went to kick her in the chest, causing her to fall underneath her. It was unfortunate that it happened but it was to her advantage. Kelly grabbed Warden’s leg yanking it out from under her forcing the other woman to the ground. She used her good leg to push herself on top of Warden, raising a fist to land the final blow. Light danced around her knuckles threatening to form another kinetic blade.

Warden braced for a hit that never came. When she opened her eyes she saw Kelly above her, frozen in place. She was shaking horribly unable to control the light around her. It sparked before disappearing completely. Warden stared at her unable to understand what was happening. Why had she stopped?

Kelly dropped her fist, pushing herself off of Warden giving the other kinetic the opportunity to escape. She didn’t budge. Kelly didn’t really care. She was hearing her father’s last words in her head again. They were creeping up on her like they always did. _You never had a choice…you will always be like me._ She almost was, she had been ready to kill Warden at multiple points during the fight.

“Why didn’t you hit me?” Warden was confused and in a lot of pain, her side was on fire making it almost impossible to move.

“Because I was going to kill you,” Kelly admitted as she dug her heel into the dirt. “I’m not my father, I keep forgetting that.”

“What did daddy hit you when you were little?” Warden spat.

Kelly didn’t say anything, instead she just turned her head so Warden couldn’t see her. That wasn’t why. Donovan was the reason Kelly hesitated but it wasn’t for the reason Warden was thinking.

“Donovan never hit me,” Kelly said. “He would shout at me and lock me in a closet for hours at a time, but he never hit me.”

Warden was taken aback by Kelly’s sudden confession. She had meant to goad the girl into attacking her again, not to make her talk. Part of her wanted to push pass the pain and take advantage of Kelly’s lack of focus on her and run. But another part of her, a part she didn’t remember ever having, compelled her to stay. It froze every part of her, locking her to that spot.

Kelly seemed to notice her inability to run because she turned towards Warden. Some of the light returned to weave around her fingers. She looked Warden up and down as if deep in thought. She sighed, rising to her feet. Kelly held out her hand to help Warden up. She was about to do something very stupid but one thing her parents had drilled into her was that every single person was capable of redemption. They may have changed their tune about certain people but Kelly saw this as an opportunity to prove she wasn’t like her father.

Warden took her hand after some hesitation, allowing Kelly to pull her to her feet. She didn’t fight when Kelly turned her around to place another dampener on the center of her back. She felt her powers disappear which caused the pain in her side to become more intense. Kelly slipped under Warden’s arm to help support the woman.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Kelly said as they started walking.

“Regret what?” Warden had no clue what was happening.

“I’m giving you a chance,” Kelly said. “Can you take me to Thorul?”

Warden paused in her step. It wasn’t that she couldn’t take Kelly to Thorul, she could, she just didn’t want to go back to Thorul. She knew if she faced that woman again she would kill her. Not that it didn’t sound tempting because it did. But knowing Thorul the way she did she knew she would never make it out alive.

“Why would I do something stupid like that?”

“Thorul needs to be dealt with,” Kelly said. “Whether she be taken into custody at the DEO alongside you or have something _else_ happen to her.”

“I have a few ideas.”

“Just remember I’m not doing this for you,” Kelly said. “It’s for my own sake.”

Kelly wasn’t sure how she really felt about forging a short-term alliance with Warden. The woman had nearly killed her once only a year ago and had immediately attacked her after Kelly had given her a chance to talk. She wasn’t trust worthy, Kelly knew that but she was her only chance of getting to Thorul. Maybe Warden’s hate for Thorul would be enough to keep her in check long enough for Kelly to take down Thorul and to take Warden in to the DEO.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Warden said pulling Kelly from her thoughts.

“You aren’t really in a position to make any deals.” What was Warden thinking? Kelly could easily hand Warden over to the DEO and let them force the information out of her.

“I want to handle Thorul my way,” Warden said. “In exchange I will willingly turn myself into the DEO. No trick, no lies, I will do whatever you say.”

She wasn’t sure if she could trust the deal but it was tempting. She could keep Warden on a short leash, without her powers. Warden would have no choice but to rely on Kelly. And as long as Thorul was dealt with it didn’t really matter whether or not she was in DEO custody.

“No killing, this has to be nonlethal. If you can do that, I’ll give you Thorul.”

“You have yourself a deal.”

Warden pushed herself away from Kelly finding it easier to hold herself up. She didn’t like the idea of not having her powers but she knew that it was going to be nonnegotiable. She could tell Kelly didn’t even want this alliance. The whole thing had come out of her wanting to prove to herself she wasn’t like Donovan. Warden could have already told her she wasn’t. The fact the she was haunted by him even after his death proved that she was completely different. Anyone could have seen they were two completely different people.

“So what’s the plan kid?”

“Please stop calling me kid, I have a name,” Kelly said. “Please for the love of Rao use it.”

“Right, Kelly,” Warden grumbled shaking her head. “You worship Rao?”

Kelly paused, remembering Warden had mentioned the cult she had been saved from was the Cult of Rao. She had never really thought about it, none of her family was really religious. They had all just fallen into using Rao because of Kara, it had just been how they did things.

“Not really, we just always used it I guess…” Kelly admitted scratching the back of her neck. “We’re not religious, or at least I’m not. Can we not talk about this? What should I call you?”

“Warden.”

“No I meant your actual name,” Kelly said. “If we’re going to be working together, which honestly is the dumbest idea I’ve ever come up with, we should know each other’s names. You know mine so what’s yours?”

Warden sighed. She didn’t have an actual name, not one that she remembered. She had been Warden for so long she had forgotten who she had once been. It was fine by her, she never actually wanted to go back if she was given the chance. She was happy as she was knowing her name would be Warden no matter what happened to her.

“I don’t have one,” Warden finally said. “I gave it up when I joined Thorul.”

“Do you…do you want a new one?”

Kelly almost felt sorry for the woman standing next to her. Before that moment she had only ever seen Warden as the bad guy but she was starting to see that there was a lot more to her than Kelly had originally thought. Warden was a deeply flawed individual, but she was that way for a reason. What kind of person who was raised in a cult, then taken in by a mad woman who then brainwashed them could be a functional part of society in only a year? The answer was none. It would take years of deprogramming before Warden was anywhere close to normal.

“No,” Warden’s answer was short and final. “I’m happy being Warden.”

“Can you even be happy?” Kelly was genuinely curious. “You don’t look like you pull of any emotion other than angry.”

“Are you going to talk the whole time?” Warden snapped.

“No.”

She fell silent, the last thing she wanted to do was piss off Warden before they went after Thorul. Kelly hadn’t realized she would start talking as much as she had. It had been a year since she had had any real contact with a person, besides brief interactions with hotel staff and waiters. The year she had been gone had been a solitary journey, starting as a means to figure out her place in the world and ending with her arresting the woman who had tried to kill her. Truth be told she didn’t plan on staying in National City after turning Warden in. She was still struggling with herself and was thinking of going to Gotham at least for a while. Considering Kate Kane was used to being a solitary person she might be a good person to learn a thing or two from. Her sister was a cold blooded murderer after all.

“It’s a long walk back to the hotel, should we get a cab?” Kelly didn’t want to make it easy on Warden. The more comfortable the kinetic got the more likely she was to try something. But Kelly was tired and she really didn’t want to walk all the way back to the city. If they could make city limits she would cave and get a cab.

“If you insist on keeping this device on me then yes,” Warden said.

She wasn’t in the mood to argue. She would get them back to the hotel and make sure Warden was restrained before getting a couple of hours of sleep. It was unlikely she would get a full night sleep. Between the nightmares that had become more and more frequent since leaving National City and the woman she now had to keep watch over her mind would be racing.

Together they walked in step for over two hours towards the outskirts of town in complete silence. Warden occasionally stumbled, her side still causing her pain from Kelly’s punch. Every single time Kelly reached out to catch her out of instinct and every single time Warden shoved her away. After a while Kelly stopped trying, her feelings towards Warden were mixed. If Warden wanted to make herself more miserable Kelly was going to let her.

It took them four hours to get back to Kelly’s base of operations. Kelly nearly collapsed the second the passed the threshold. Warden carefully crossed the room, finding a comfortable perch on the couch. She pulled her knees to her chest leaving Kelly to her own devices. Kelly was glad Warden was being so obedient, after their fight Kelly didn’t think she had the strength to fight her again. Not to mention her leg was hurting something fierce. She was slowly learning during her time away from home that the servicing her leg needed as actually necessary and not some way for Lena to keep an eye on her.

_She’s going to murder me when I finally go in for a check-up…maybe I should just stay away, move to Gotham or something…_ Kelly dropped herself onto the bed, no longer concerned that Warden would try to run off. The other kinetic looked just as tired as she felt, she could even see in Warden’s eyes all the fight had left her. Content with her surroundings Kelly ripped off her boots flexing both her feet. Her prosthetic fought her as she curled her toes but eventually started to listen to her. She had kept up on the progress L-Corp was making in putting the prosthetic into market. They were only weeks away from their first wide scale use in the country. Thousands of deserving people who couldn’t afford prosthetics would finally get them. Kelly didn’t deserve hers, she knew that but it was too late, it hadn’t been her decision.

“Are you alright?”

Warden’s voice startled her. She glanced over to the woman who turned away from her almost as if she hadn’t meant to speak out. “I’m fine. Get some rest we’ll have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

“It will take time for us to hit Thorul,” Warden warned. “Her base is well fortified, even with me it will be hard to take. She had always planned for eventualities. Looking back I should have known she didn’t trust me.”

“We’ll she never planned for me,” Kelly said, moving off her bed picking a bag off the floor. “These won’t be comfortable but after your stunt earlier I don’t think I can trust you.”

“That would be smart,” she held out her arms allowing Kelly to restrain her wrists. “Wouldn’t want me to kill you in your sleep.”

“I don’t sleep very well anymore,” Kelly said returning to her bed. “You can try, but you’ll fail.”

She flipped off the lights leaving them in a blanket of darkness. If Warden tried anything Kelly would be alerted, the restraints she was using on her prisoner would go off If Warden moved too much. It was all that assured her she would be able to catch a couple hours of sleep before they began their planning in the morning. It was time for Kelly’s nightmare to finally end.

XXXXX

_She was in complete darkness. She tried summoning the light to her hand, some type of solace in the infinite darkness that surrounded her but nothing came. The darkness was swallowing it all. She wanted to scream. She hated it when it was pitch black, when it was so dark even her powers couldn’t manifest. Her father had been the one to seed this fear of the dark in her. The closet had always been so dark with only the slightest bit of light creeping in. She had been too young to use her powers properly back then. If she just concentrated enough she could do it, even in the darkest of nights she could manifest light. It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t work. She needed to get out of there._

_Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark room slowly allowing her to see shapes and outlines. At the far end of the room was a door with only the slightest amount of light coming through. It was odd. It hadn’t been there before had it? It didn’t matter, she ran for it, slamming into it at full speed. The wood splintered and exploded outward as she passed through it. She tripped rolling off her shoulder and coming to a stop face down. The room was much brighter than before but her powers still weren’t working. She could feel the sting in her shoulder from the fall, but she pushed passed it forcing herself to her feet._

_She looked around finding herself in a large corridor. It was completely empty besides her and a figure at the other end of the hall. She couldn’t make out who it was, but it almost looked like Alex._

_“Mom?” Kelly called out to her._

_Alex either didn’t hear her or wasn’t listening because she didn’t turn around. She continued on down the hall that seemed to extend even farther with each step she took. Kelly ran after her never getting any closer to her. She cried out again and again trying to get her mother’s attention but Alex never once acknowledged her._

_“Mom please!” Kelly shouted._

_Alex stopped this time but Kelly never stopped running. Still the distance between them remained the same. She ran harder, faster, whatever it took to get to her until even her feet stopped cooperating causing her to trip and fall. She slid across the floor and when she came to a stop Alex was only feet away. When she looked up Alex was glaring down at her with a frown. Kelly’s heart sank seeing the disappointment in her mother’s face._

_“Mom?” Kelly reached up towards her wanting to anchor herself to something, to someone._

_“You chose this,” Alex said her voice cold as ice. “Remember?”_

_Kelly was plunged into darkness, Alex disappearing from in front of her. She screamed, jumping to her feet, running to catch up to her. Instead she slammed head first into a door. It didn’t budge. She pounded her fists against what must have been solid steel, hoping that it would open. It never did. Tears streamed down her face as she slid to the floor in defeat. Around her she could feel the walls closing in on her, like they had done when she was little. For the first time since she was four years old Kelly was completely trapped and alone…_

XXXXX

Kelly bolted up, drenched in sweat, unable to get her breathing under control. Her heart was racing, feeling like it might burst out of her chest. Kelly dug her nails into her chest. She had been having similar nightmares since she left National City. Every night it slowly chipped away at her, if it went on much longer it would be the end of her. She couldn’t understand why it was happening. Alex would never treat her like that, with cold indifference. It wasn’t Alex, Kelly knew that, but she still had nightmares about Alex abandoning her in the darkness.

She glanced at the clock next to her bed reading 4:04AM. She knew that trying to get more sleep was pointless. It never failed that her nightmares would wake her up from her sleep and leave her with hours left in the night. Like always she rose from her bed, her leg stiff from a few hours in bed. Underneath her the prosthetic protested against the sudden use. She took a minute to ensure Warden was still fast asleep on the couch before moving into the bathroom.

The door swung shut behind her before she flicked on the light. The reflection staring back at her was not her own. Her eyes were glowing gold again. Something she had learned would happen whenever she was extremely emotional. She gripped the sink tightly not caring that she hear it start to crack under the pressure. She wanted to scream. Maybe her parents would never forgive her for leaving. Maybe they would blame Nia for not stopping her. Maybe they would just blame her. She didn’t care. She just wanted the nightmares to end.

“Once we take down Thorul this will all be over…” Kelly said ignoring the broken porcelain in her clenched fists. “No matter what it takes…”


	2. Alex and Maggie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are with chapter 2. This one will focus on Alex and Maggie. Like I said longer chapters but hopefully that's a good thing. I'm enjoying how with each chapter the story itself is evolving into things I didn't even think of when I was planning this one. In any case next chapter will be up in a couple weeks and will focus more on Lori. Am I posting this kinda fast? Yes. But I've got the chapter done so. Here have it. Thanks for reading and enjoy

They had been fighting for months. If it wasn’t arguing over one thing it was another but it almost always started with Kelly. Alex knew how Maggie felt because she felt the same, she was hurt, angry even, but she knew Kelly wasn’t leaving forever. Maggie didn’t seem to agree. She had this almost desperate need to find Kelly and convince her to come home. Their daughter was twenty-two now, having been gone for a year, and was able to make her own choices. Rao knows they had made enough choices for her. Alex held out hope that maybe, just maybe they could put everything aside for one night and enjoy their anniversary.

She had been pleasantly surprised when Maggie came home after work, kissed her and told her to change into something nice. Maggie got all dressed up too, in a button up shirt Alex loved on her. It was perfect, even dinner, which was at an Italian restaurant that they had had their first real date at years ago. It was a complete surprise to Alex that Maggie had even bothered to take the time to make reservations and surprise Alex with them. Alex had to admit it was the sweetest gesture Maggie had had since their first Valentine’s Day together.

“Alex,” Maggie said setting aside her second glass of wine before reaching out to take Alex’s hand in hers. “You know I love you right?”

Alex smiled running her thumb over the back of Maggie’s hand. “Of course I do, I love you too.” No matter how much they fought Alex would never stop loving Maggie. She had no idea where she would have been if it hadn’t been for Maggie stumbling back into her life that rainy day nearly seventeen years ago.

Maggie sighed averting her eyes from Alex’s. “Look I know I haven’t been the best wife in the last twelve months,” she said squeezing Alex’s hand. “I can’t help but feel partially responsible. If I had never…I shouldn’t have pushed Lena back then. I should have trusted you.”

Alex knew Maggie was talking about when Kelly was sixteen and nearly died. While she and Kara had been raiding the bastard who poisoned forty people’s lab Maggie had lost all her patience. Her wife had gone to Lena and asked she use the Haranel to save Kelly. Lena did, but only moments before Alex and Kara had returned with the antidote. Alex had lost it after that, angry that Maggie wouldn’t even consider talking to her first. Maggie had given her the only reason she could manage; _She’s my daughter…I wasn’t going to risk losing her…_

“Mags, Haranel or not Kelly would have still chosen to leave,” Alex assured her. “Whatever she is dealing with has nothing to do with us. We did everything we thought was right.”

“I just want her home,” Maggie said sounding small.

It always surprised Alex just how much Maggie cared. When Alex had mention wanting kids, when they had originally been engaged, Maggie had baulked at the idea. She never wanted kids, Alex was enough family for her. It had ended their relationship. Then one day there was Maggie, smiling and laughing with a six year old Kelly. Falling asleep on the couch in the middle of Kelly’s favorite movie with Titan curled up on the floor. It had been the biggest 360 Alex had ever seen in a person, but Maggie, for someone who fought so vehemently about not wanting kids, she was a great mom. She held Kelly when she woke up screaming from nightmares, she was there when Kelly went through breakups and fight. She was the first person Kelly said I love you too after Alex adopted her. Kelly adored Maggie and she knew her wife adored the daughter she never thought she wanted.

“I do too,” Alex said. “But our daughter is just as stubborn as us. It’s just going to take time. But can we please not do this tonight.”

“Right, of course,” Maggie said forcing a smile. “I’m sorry, do we talk about work or something else?”

“How about,” Alex said her voice dropping as she leaned in closer to Maggie. “You tell me what your plans are for after dinner. What exactly are you planning to do with me Lieutenant Sawyer?”

Maggie gave Alex a sly grin. She had a few ideas for her wife that night when they got home and she knew Alex would be up for all of them. They hadn’t had a night together that didn’t involve arguing in a long time and though Maggie was sure they arguing would start again tomorrow she wanted a night without it. She wanted one night where she could enjoy herself and Alex. She knew it was her fault in the first place that they weren’t getting along. She was the one always starting the fights and she knew Alex was getting tired of it. If she was honest she was too, fighting wasn’t bringing Kelly home. Maybe it was time to try something new.

“You’ll just have to wait until we get home to find out,” Maggie said.

As it turned out Alex struggled to not rush through dinner. She did everything to distract herself from Maggie’s wondering hand, including small talk that she usually scoffed at. Maggie was enjoying watching Alex squirm in her seat. It was fun to learn that after all these years together it was still easy to make her wife so flustered. Alex was bright red and would stumble all over her words when Maggie’s hand would creep further up her thigh. She almost jumped out of her seat when Maggie squeezed her hip leaning over to kiss Alex’s neck.

“Ready to get out of here?” She murmured into Alex’s ear.

“Please,” Alex was at the point if Maggie made them wait much longer she might have to beg.

“Let’s go then,” Maggie said with a smirk.

Alex offered to pay the bill while Maggie went out for their car, she didn’t think she’d have the concentration to drive them home. She knew Maggie was doing them on purpose, she knew exactly what to do to make Alex’s brain short circuit. Part of her found it annoying but the rest of her found it extremely hot. When she got outside she all but jumped in the passenger seat, if she had to wait much longer she might just explode. Luckily for her Maggie wasn’t in the mood for drawing it out. She drove slightly over the speed limit to get them home a little faster. She was just as impatient as Alex, it had been too long since the two of them had been able to enjoy each other. Maggie wasn’t about to waste it.

They had barely made it out of the car before Maggie crashed their lips together pinning Alex to the side of the car. Alex melting into her pulling Maggie as close as physically possible. Maggie, somehow managing to get her hands between them, ran her hands down Alex’s chest, down to her toned abs. Alex stopped her, not because she wanted to but because she didn’t want to do this against the side of a car, they weren’t in their twenties any more.

“Inside,” Alex said finding it hard to piece together a sentence.

Maggie nodded moving her hands to Alex’s hips. Alex happily obliged, wrapping her legs around Maggie’s waist and allowing her wife to carry her inside. It was a challenge, because Alex wasn’t giving Maggie a breath. Her wife kissed her way down Maggie’s neck, lightly nipping at the flesh at her shoulder. Maggie nearly gave up halfway down the hallway, wanting to pin Alex to the wall and take her right there but her back was starting to hurt. She stumbled through their bedroom door barely making it to the bed before she fell.

Alex wasted no time tearing open Maggie’s shirt sending buttons flying everywhere. Maggie couldn’t even bring herself to care, Alex was rarely like this and Maggie wasn’t about to stop her. She was just as impatient, choosing to help Alex out of her shirt (with less destruction than Alex had gotten her out of her own). Maggie kissed down Alex’s chest stopping long enough to remove Alex’s bra. The noises coming from her wife spurred Maggie on as she moved down to remove Alex’s belt before unbuttoning her pants. Alex’s breath hitched as Maggie’s hand slowly worked its way to the place Alex most wanted it.

She pulled Maggie down kissing her roughly. Alex moaned against Maggie’s lips as her wife fingered the hem of her underwear, teasing her slightly. She felt like she was about to combust when Maggie finally slipped lower. Alex ran her hand down Maggie’s side wanting Maggie closer wanting her to finally make good on all the teasing. But right as that moment was about to happen there was a loud bang, followed by that of wood splitting and a dog frantically barking.

At first Alex thought the bed had collapsed, but when Maggie leapt off of her, going immediately for her gun Alex knew it was something else. She went for her own gun, ignoring the fact she was half naked. They both ran into the hallway guns raised ready to shoot whoever had just broken into their home.

Titan had fallen silent and was nowhere in sight which worried Alex, he was a great guard dog something was wrong. She braced herself for the worst as she came around the corner. Maggie stayed in front of her, partially to block her from the intruder’s view, partially to shield her from whatever they might find. When they made it into the family room Maggie stopped dead causing Alex to run into her. She glanced up looking at what had caused Maggie to hesitate.

Alex’s face went red for the second time that night but not for a good reason. She could see Maggie was boiling, her shoulders having gone ridged. Alex had to drop her gun in order to cover herself.

“What the fuck Kara?!” Alex didn’t know if she was angrier about her front door or the fact her sister had interrupted them. “Y-you destroyed my door!”

Maggie’s eye was twitching which made Alex wonder if her wife was about to shoot her sister. Alex wouldn’t even stop her, Kara hadn’t even knocked and her sister knew damn well that it was their anniversary.

“We need you at the DEO now,” Kara said ignoring the fact that her sister was standing barely dressed and Maggie was still aiming her gun at her. “It’s an emergency.”

“A big enough emergency you broke down our goddamned door?” Maggie shouted. “I’m going to kill your sister Alex.”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Alex said taking a moment to grab a blanket to wrap herself in. “Nothing could be this important.”

“I-” Kara pausing seeming to realize that both Alex and Maggie were disheveled and partially dressed. “Were you two…um…in the middle of something?”

Alex thought Maggie was going to explode. She grabbed her wife’s arm pulling her back from throttling Kara. As angry as she was with Kara’s rude interruption she really didn’t want to break up a fight between the two of them. She really wanted to have a nice night with Maggie and she had gotten it up until a few minutes ago.

“No, of course not Kara what would give you that idea?” Maggie said.

“Enough Maggie please,” Alex pleaded. “Can you please get me something to put on?”

Maggie started to shake her head but after one glance at Alex she sighed and nodded. She didn’t like the idea of her wife standing their half-naked wrapped in only a blanket. Even if it was only Kara standing there. Reluctantly she left Alex alone with Kara heading back to the bedroom to find Alex’s bra and a shirt.

Kara watched Maggie leave, waiting until her sister-in-law was out of earshot before turning to Alex. “DEO, now.” She wasn’t leaving any room for Alex to argue her but Alex wasn’t going anywhere without some kind of explanation.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on,” Alex said glancing down the hall. Whatever it was Kara didn’t want Maggie to hear.

“I can’t,” Kara said. “Not with her here.”

Alex dropped her voice so Maggie wouldn’t hear her even if she was coming down the hall. “Is this about Kelly?” Kara shook her head but Alex wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to answer or if it was about something else. “Warden?”

“At the DEO, Alex.”

She sighed, clearly it didn’t matter what she wanted Kara wasn’t going to let this go until the morning. Alex would definitely return the favor later when Kara was having a night off. It wasn’t like Kara and Lena where always fighting, their relationship was stronger than ever. Maybe Kara didn’t realize just how fragile Alex and Maggie’s relationship had gotten in the past year. She could forgive her sister for that because she hadn’t brought it up, but she figured Lena would have figured it out by then and brought it up to Kara. Clearly Alex had been wrong.

“Fine, I’ll meet you there in an hour,” she said reluctantly. “Now go before she gets back, she will murder you and frankly I’m inclined to let her.”

Her sister nodded, finding it better not to argue, and left just as Maggie was returning with a shirt and bra for Alex. She could tell Maggie was still annoyed but the anger had left her, replaced by annoyance. Maggie handed her the clothes, turning away slightly to allow Alex to get dressed without her watchful eye.

“Are you going in?” Maggie had crossed her arms, looking a little disappointed. “If you are I’ll get to work on fixing the door…”

“I don’t want to but Kara was insistent,” Alex said with a sigh. She didn’t want to leave Maggie but she was afraid if she didn’t Kara would crash through her wall…or the ceiling. “I promise I won’t take too long.”

“Take as much time as you need,” Maggie said her shoulder’s dropping slightly. “Mood is already ruined. No point in trying to fix it.”

Alex knew Maggie wasn’t blaming her but it still hurt to see Maggie so defeated. Ultimately Maggie was right, Alex would go to the DEO and end up being their all night, Maggie would end up being home alone again. She was going to make sure Kara made it up to them for ruining their night.

“I love you Mags,” Alex said wanting to reach out and pull Maggie into a tight embrace.

“I know,” Maggie said moving towards the broken door. “I love you too. Now go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back.”

She left Maggie to her own, taking a few minutes to run back to the bedroom to change completely before she left. Maggie gave her a small wave as she stepped through what was left of her door. She took her Ducati instead of Maggie’s cruiser just in case Maggie was called into work, which wasn’t unheard of.

XXXXX

The DEO had lost a lot of its charm in the past year. It used to be that Alex would have Kelly or Lori crashing through the balcony either in excitement or after a big fight. Now it was just Kara. If Lori ever came to the DEO she came through the regular entrance. It had a completely different air to it now and it always made Alex a little uneasy.

Pushing that feeling aside she went to the command center, finding Kara there in her supersuit, hands on her hips staring at one of the monitors on the wall. Alex wondered why she wasn’t at home with Lena, surely that was preferable to being at the DEO at eleven pm on a Friday. Kara turned towards her when she heard her approaching, she wasn’t smiling which told Alex something was wrong.

“What was so important you interrupted my anniversary to drag me here Kara?” She was still annoyed about the whole situation (and especially her front door). Because of Kara she had to work while sexually frustrated which was one way she never wanted to work.

“Kelly appeared on our radar again,” Kara said nudging Brainy to bring up the data that showed a spike in Photokinetic energy.

“Where is she at now?”

“Canada,” Brainy said.

They had been keeping tabs on her just to make sure she was still alright but Alex had ordered every person who knew about the operation to keep it away from Maggie. If Maggie found out Alex was aware of Kelly’s location she would be in for a hell of a shouting match. Alex also knew she would never be able to stop Maggie from going after their daughter.

“That’s what was so important?”

“No,” Brainy said pulling up secondary data of another spike. “There was a second ping of Photokinetic energy in the same area as Kelly’s.”

“Warden?”

“Most likely.”

That complicated matters. They hadn’t seen any trace of Warden in a year, then she suddenly appears at the same time as Kelly, in the same location. Part of her was concerned, if Kelly went after Warden she was in danger. They had never found Thorul and clearly Warden had survived their encounter. She glanced over the data finding that both spiked and disappeared at the same time before spiking again. Then they disappeared completely.

“What should we do Director?”

Both Brainy and Kara had turned to face her. She wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the situation. On the one hand Kelly could be in immediate danger, hurt even, but on the other she could be fine and on her way home with Warden in custody. Both were equally likely but one warranted her immediate action and the other required her to wait. She sighed, no matter what she decided she would be wrong.

“Send a team but keep your distance,” Alex said. “If she’s hurt bring her home, if not approach with caution. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“Are you sure?” Kara looked like she wanted to go. She was just as worried about Kelly as the rest of them. She had seen just how violent Kelly could get when she was pushed. “I can go. Maybe if she is okay I can convince her to come back.”

It was tempting but Alex knew her daughter and knew if she felt cornered Kelly would fight and run, even if it was Kara. She had been so volatile in the months before her departure, suffering from nightmares and PTSD. She refused to talk about it to anyone, she wouldn’t even talk to Kelli Olsen. The only person Alex knew for sure Kelly talked to was Lori but her niece had been just as closed lip as Kelly. Alex was afraid Kelly was struggling with more than just stress. It might be that the Kelly they found was no longer the Kelly they knew.

“You can go but stay away from her,” Alex said. “Make this a recon mission. I need to know if…I’m worried that we might not find the same girl who left us.”

“You don’t think she defected do you?”

“I don’t know anything,” Alex admitted her voice cracking. “I thought I knew my daughter, I thought giving her space and not pushing her to talk to me was the right thing to do. I thought she needed the space. And then she left. I failed her Kara. Turns out I didn’t know a thing.”

“It’s not your fault Alex,” Kara said but it did nothing to comfort Alex.

The longer Kelly was gone, the more it hurt. She just wanted something to hold on to until Kelly came home, but if Kelly wasn’t going to do that easily Alex was willing to deploy other means. If Kelly took much longer Alex would bring her home forcefully.

“Just complete the mission,” Alex said. “Don’t breathe a word of this to Maggie.”

“Of course not,” Kara said. “Are you two alright?”

“No,” Alex said. “We’re not, we haven’t been for a while. Just forget about it, take a team and find Kelly. Keep me updated.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be in the training room for a while,” Alex said. “I have to figure out what I’m going to tell Maggie.”

Kara watched Alex walk off. She could tell her sister was hurting but she had no idea how to fix it. Maybe getting information on Kelly would help the eldest Danvers deal with the stress she was currently feeling. She felt really bad about the whole situation. None of them had tried very hard to find Kelly after she left. The only one who insisted they go after her was Maggie, but Alex refused. Kara couldn’t understand the reasoning behind any of it but she knew if there was one thing a Sawyer was good at, it was leaving.

XXXXX

Maggie spent twenty minutes staring at the destroyed front door before giving up and calling Lena. She explained what had happened in great detail, ensuring Lena knew exactly how pissed she was at the intrusion. Lena promised someone would be by that night to fix it and that Kara would be sleeping on the couch for the next week or more. Once that was dealt with Maggie debated going to bed but after a few minutes realized the chances of Alex coming home that night were slim to none. Instead she found herself driving to the precinct. She was sure there was a stack of paperwork she could work on if nothing else. At least it would give her something to focus on while Alex was working.

The precinct was fairly quiet at this time of night. At least with the Science Division it was. There was usually only one or two detectives working through the night. That night Maggie found Ryan, a gung-ho newbie sitting at his desk going through his own stack of paperwork and Sara. The latter of which smiled and waved at her as she made her way towards her office.

“What brings you in this late Lieutenant?”

“Alex had work and I wasn’t going to spend another night with a dog taking up the majority of the bed,” Maggie said with a sigh. “What about you? I thought you were working days?”

“Picked up a couple extra shifts so I can take some time off to spend with the girlfriend,” Sara said, she rarely brought up her personal life up with Maggie. One because Maggie was her direct superior and two because she had almost dated Maggie’s daughter. “Any word on Kelly?”

“No,” Maggie said. “I don’t think she’s coming back any time soon.”

“I’m sure she misses you,” Sara said trying to say something that might comfort Maggie.

“Yeah,” Maggie sighed. “Don’t work too hard.”

She headed to her office and settled in for a long night of work. She yawned. She really was tired but she hadn’t been lying about being tired of sharing her bed with the dog. Titan of course was spending the night in the garage because of Kara’s stunt so really it didn’t matter. Maggie hadn’t been wrong about the paperwork. In fact the stack had grown a fair deal since she had been in that afternoon. She could have sworn some of the higher ups were dropping them there out of spite. It didn’t matter, work was work and as long as it distracted her from everything else she was content.

Maggie was just starting to get into the paperwork when her phone buzzed. At first she thought it was Alex, texting her to tell her that she would in fact be home that night, but it wasn’t. She was surprised to see Nia’s name along with the text ‘ _We need to talk, can I swing by?’_ At least Nia had the forethought to text Maggie before coming around. After a pause Maggie texted her back letting her know she was at the precinct.

She could think of any reason why Nia would need to talk to her. They weren’t exactly close, only ever talking during Superfriend gatherings. She supposed it could be Dreamer related, one of those things that didn’t require DEO intervention but something that needed some kind of law enforcement. Whatever it was it was important enough that it couldn’t wait for morning and for Nia to come in to the precinct.

It had only been fifteen minutes when Maggie noticed Nia slowly making her way through the sea of desks. Sara pointed towards Maggie’s office as Nia passed her. Maggie waved Nia in waiting for the younger girl to close the door behind her before speaking.

“What is it about tonight that suddenly everyone has something important to say,” it wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. First Kara and now Nia, she wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly Lena texted one of them.

“Did something else happen?”

Maggie sighed. “Emergency at the DEO, I’m surprised you aren’t there.”

“Right…um….” Nia rubbed the back of her neck unsure of how to proceed. “It probably has something to do with what I’m about to tell you…”

“What’s going on Nia?” Maggie wasn’t in the mood to mess around. She wanted to get to the point.

Nia swallowed hard showing her discomfort. She had always been a little intimidated by Maggie, someone who could handle Director Danvers as well as she could deserved to be respected. But it made her difficult to talk to. Especially now she had changed since Kelly left, before she had been approachable now it was a gamble.

“The night Kelly left,” Nia started, ringing her hands nervously. “We stepped out to talk…because I saw her leaving…because of my powers? She begged me not to say anything.”

Maggie clenched her fists but said nothing. She wasn’t going to go off on Nia for something that happened a year ago. Nia wasn’t responsible for Kelly’s actions, she probably felt like she had no choice but to stay quiet. It didn’t mean Maggie wasn’t angry though.

“I never would have brought it up but I had another one of my dream visions…I saw her sort of. Things aren’t always clear if I’m not looking for them.”

“What did you see,” Maggie was fighting to keep her voice level.

“I think it was Warden with Kelly…” Nia said. “But I’m not sure. I’ve tried to see it again but it’s gone I can’t.”

She had a feeling that what Nia thought she saw was right. Why else would Kara come crashing through their front door late at night insisting that Alex go with her? She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. If that was the case Alex should have called her and told her what was going on. The fact that she hadn’t told Maggie Alex was keeping secrets from her. That was going to change.

Maggie rose from her desk, walking past Nia without saying a word. She was done being lied to, she was willing to let Kelly take her time as much as she wanted her daughter home she wanted her to heal more. Even if that meant her being away for a long time. She had come to that realization earlier at dinner. But this? This pissed her off. She knew Alex had her reasons but it didn’t make it right. Maggie deserved to know what was going on and the fact Alex didn’t think so was the last straw.

“Sara make sure Nia gets home alright,” Maggie said as she passed by the detective. “I’m leaving, something came up.”

Sara nodded, realizing it would be wise not to speak to Maggie at the moment. She was becoming really good at reading her superior’s emotions. Whatever Nia had said to her had made her angry and Sara wanted to avoid getting onto Maggie’s bad side. She waited for Maggie to leave completely before turning to Nia who was standing in the office door shaking her head.

“I don’t think I’m going to be invited to any game nights for a while,” was all Nia could think to say.

XXXXX

“Alexandra Sawyer-Danvers we need to talk right now!”

Alex missed the next rungs on the salmon ladder causing her to fall to the mats below. She pushed herself up only to be greeting by her fuming wife. She knew she was in trouble when Maggie used her full name. Could she really have been that mad about Alex not coming home? No this was about something else.

“When where you planning on telling me about Warden?”

“What?” Alex was genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t. Just tell me what’s going on Alex,” Maggie said sounding less angry. “I don’t want to keep fighting with you.”

Her wife sighed holding out her hand for Maggie to help her up. Maggie did so without any hesitation, she knew Alex wasn’t hurt but falling off the salmon ladder was never fun. Alex didn’t let go of Maggie’s hand when she was back on her feet. Instead she tugged Maggie in the direction of her office. Maggie wondered why Alex thought they needed more privacy than the training room offered. She was the boss, if agents bothered them she could just run them out.

Alex shut the door behind them, taking the time to lock it. Alex didn’t like discussing Kelly around other agents because much like Kara they weren’t all aware of her secret identity. The people in the command center were all aware of Kelly being the Flare, it was the others who weren’t in the know. Maggie never really understood how people couldn’t tell the Kara and Supergirl were the same person. She felt the same about Kelly.

“Kelly spiked the sensors a couple hours ago, not unusual, she’s been using her powers more now that she’s realized I’m not sending anyone after her,” Alex said making her way around her desk. “But she wasn’t the only signature we picked up. She was with Warden. I’ve sent a team with Kara to check it out. It’s strictly recon unless Kelly is hurt.”

“That must have been what Nia saw,” Maggie said pinching the bridge of her nose. This was exactly what she hadn’t want to hear. “What kind of signatures are we talking about?”

“Small bursts, maybe a couple of small fights but who knows,” Alex said with a shrug. “What’s this about Nia?”

Maggie crossed her arms, tipping her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Nia knew Kelly was going to leave that night, she came by my office to tell me. She also had one of dreams. Said she saw Kelly with Warden or something that she believed to be that.” The more superpowered friends they added the group the harder it got for Maggie to understand each of their powers. None of them were ever simple and had so many sub-branches Maggie thought she might have to keep a chart.

“We’ll have to wait for Kara to check in before we know anything for sure,” Alex said. “I want you ready though. If Kelly’s working with Warden we have no choice but to go after her.”

“I didn’t even consider that a possibility,” Maggie admitted, glancing at Alex. “You really think she would do that?”

“I think our daughter holds a grudge,” Alex replied digging out a file to hand to Maggie. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she blamed Thorul for all that happened. She might want to go after her.”

“Warden would be the best way to do that,” Maggie said flipping through the file. “Looks like you had considered it too.”

“I did,” Alex said with a sigh. “Warden would know where she would hide. I don’t think I’d be able to pass up the opportunity.”

Maggie had to agree, she would have been tempted to use Warden to find Thorul as well. She was too dangerous to have roaming free. Maggie didn’t like the idea of Kelly going into it alone with her only back up being Warden if that was indeed what was happening. It did beg the question, how did Kelly find Warden when the DEO hadn’t even been able to?

“How did Kelly find Warden?”

“Who knows what she’s been up to in the past year,” Alex sighed. “We haven’t exactly been focusing on Warden lately.”

It was weird, in the months following Kelly’s departure both the NCPD and the DEO had spent most of their man power on hunting Warden. Since then (in the last eight months) resources had been placed elsewhere. By then they had figured Warden to have either died or left their Earth completely. Apparently neither assumption had been correct. Warden might have left Earth Prime, but she had returned. Either to finish the job she had started or for some other unknown reason. Maggie wasn’t a fan of either scenario, she had wanted to find Warden dead but you didn’t always get what you want.

“How long until Kara checks in?”

“Few more hours,” Alex said with a shrug.

“What should we do until then?”

“Come up with a plan for when Kara checks in and tells us Kelly has disappeared again?” Alex suggested.

“Sounds better than nothing,” Maggie agreed. “Where should we start?”

Alex smiled. This was one of the very few times that a conversation hadn’t ended in an argument. It had been months since the two of them had been able to work together because of how often they fought. Alex was glad things might get somewhere close to normal in the upcoming days. Much like Maggie she was tired of fighting all the time. She just wanted her wife back and now that Kelly had reappeared that might just happen.

“We should look at the data over the last year of how many portals opened and where,” Alex said. “Warden might have been jumping from Earth to Earth.”

“Alright,” Maggie said with a slight smile on her lips. “Let’s get to work.”

As it turned out work wasn’t meant to happen. After fifteen minutes going through file after file both Alex and Maggie had fallen asleep on the cot in Alex’s office. They were both exhausted having been up since 5AM that morning. It was rare for them to find sleep so easily. They probably would have slept through until morning if it hadn’t been for Alex’s phone loudly going off in their ear.

Alex untangled herself from Maggie so she could sit up and get her phone. She had expected Kara to call that night but she kind of wished her sister hadn’t. She wanted to sleep just as much as she wanted to find her daughter.

“Report?” Alex knew Kara could hear the grogginess in her voice but was too tired to really care.

“They’re gone,” Kara said. “There was a struggle but it looks like it was a short one. They headed to the city together after that then disappeared. One of your agents found a cabby who dropped them off in the center of town but I can’t hear her at all. She must have known we were coming.”

“Okay, thanks Kara,” Alex said, she had suspected as much from Kelly. “Keep the team there to keep up the search, you come home.”

“Alright,” Kara said. “Get some sleep Alex.”

She hung up before turning to Maggie. Her wife had heard everything and was shaking her head probably thinking the same thing as Alex. They had taught Kelly to well. She was good at what she did and right now that was hiding. Something Alex had taught her when she was younger. Kelly was just as capable of hiding from a secret government agency as Alex and Maggie were. They had never underestimated Kelly but they had never thought she would try so hard to hide from them.

“So what does this mean for us?”

“We pool all of our resources on her and Warden,” Alex said. “We’ll find them. Kelly may be good at hiding but she has never had to compete with me.”

“So we’re doing this?” Maggie had been waiting a year for Alex to agree with her on their course of action.

“I think it’s about time we bring our daughter home.”


	3. Lori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo this was supposed to be out like two weeks ago but life kinda got in the way (I adopted a cat, and my boat, that I live in, had a hull breach and was taking in water so priorities). In any case here is Lori's chapter. It's a little shorted because I was having some trouble getting inspiration. Things are going to start picking up here soon. Glad you're all here hope you're enjoying it so far and I look forward to continuing with this story. So thanks for reading and enjoy.

It had been hard for Lori since her cousin left. She had gone from having a person who she could tell anything to, no matter what it was, to having no one. There were things she just couldn’t talk to her parents about, and her friends, as great as they were, they didn’t know about her powers. The only person she could really talk to was Nick, Kelly’s best friend, but she didn’t want to see him. He kept defending Kelly’s actions but he didn’t understand that Kelly had abandoned them for selfish reasons. That hurt but it hurt so much more that she didn’t even say goodbye. She was angry, not just at her cousin, but at everyone in her family. Especially Nia for not trying harder to convince Kelly to stay. She hadn’t mean to eavesdrop on her aunt Nia and Uncle James but it was hard to control sometimes. None of them had done anything to go after Kelly. It had almost been like they had given up on her.

Lori wasn’t about to do that. If no one was going to take the time to track Kelly down she would do it. She could easily get into the DEO systems, she had gotten clearance from Alex since Lori was doing a lot of work with Lena. She was just as smart as both her parents, it wasn’t hard to figure out what exactly the DEO was tracking when it came to Kelly. It also helped that Lori knew her cousin well, she knew the places her cousin was likely to go and was extrapolating data from the spikes of energy she let off. Lori already knew her cousin was in Canada but she was more concerned about where her cousin was going.

Her parents would ground her for so long if they found out what she was doing when they weren’t around. She was having better luck tracking and predicting Kelly’s movements than the DEO was. It wasn’t that she was better it was that she was putting most of her free time into searching when Alex had only relegated a small portion of the DEO’s resources. She would be able to bring Kelly home within the next week if things continued to go as well as they were. Now all she had to do was figure out where Kelly was headed next.

A knock on her door made her jump. She whipped around just as Lena entered her room. With her lightning fast reflexes Lori slammed her laptop shut. She was pretty sure she heard the screen crack but she was more concerned that her mom didn’t see what she was up to.

“Are you alright,” Lena asked looking concerned about her daughter’s frantic actions.

“I’m fine,” Lori said trying to play it off. “What’s up? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Nice try but you’re not getting out of lunch with me today,” Lena said with a smile. “With your mother out of town on DEO business we should spend time together outside the lab.”

“Can we do lunch tomorrow or something,” Lori asked partially hoping Lena wouldn’t push her. “I really don’t feel like going out.”

Lena crossed her arms. With each passing day Lori became more and more reclusive. It was beginning to worry Lena. Her daughter had always been somewhat of a social butterfly, much like Kara. When Kelly had left Lori had shut herself in her room and had refused to come out for days. Lena had noticed some improvement in the months that followed but not enough to leave Lori alone. After the eighth time Lori told her friends she couldn’t hang out because of work Lena had implemented a mandatory lunch once a week with her daughter. Lori always attempted to get out of it but almost always gave in. Lena was only trying to make sure her daughter wasn’t picking up on her bad habits.

“You know the rule’s Lori,” Lena said trying not to sound too harsh.

“But I feel sick,” Lori said faking a cough. “I think I have a cold.”

“Really?” Lena said her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Please tell me how you, a Kryptonian, had caught the common cold.”

There was one thing Lori inherited from Kara that had become her greatest weakness. The inability to come up with a believable lie. She wasn’t a good liar. She had never used the “I flew here on a bus” line but she had used some pretty close. It was the worst. Her cousin was a pro at lying, it just came naturally to the girl raised by a federal agent and a cop. But the one raised by a superhero and the most selfless CEO in National City history fell short.

“Come on kiddo,” Lena said. “I know how to cheer my two girls up, potstickers and pizza.”

“I guess I could handle some pizza,” Lori said unable to hold back a smile.

Her mom always tried so hard with her. She was always there when Lori needed her, even if L-Corp was burning to the ground Lena’s first priority was Lori. She knew Lena was doing her best. She couldn’t fix the situation but she could at least make it easier for Lori to deal with. Distracting Lori from Kelly’s absence was all Lena could really do. It was all any of them could do. It had been a difficult year without her cousin around. Lori had once looked up to Kelly, now she didn’t know how she felt about her. How could she look up to someone who had just abandoned them all?

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Alright,” Lena said with a small smile. “And Lori?”

“Yeah mom?”

“Give her time,” Lena said nodding towards Lori’s laptop. “She’ll come back on her own.”

Lori glanced down at her computer then back at Lena. “How did you know?” Her mother chuckled as she started out the door.

“What? You don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up too?” Lena said her smile growing. “You’re not very good at hiding things. Though I’m not the best judge of things. It took me years to realize Kara and Supergirl were one in the same.”

Lena left closing the door behind her. Lori sighed opening her laptop to see what damage she had caused. The screen had a large crack through it but was otherwise undamaged. She supposed she didn’t have to hide the fact it was broken to her parents. Lena somehow already knew she was looking for Kelly and she wasn’t stopping Lori. She closed her computer again knowing Kelly would be going dark for a while until the pressure from the DEO disappeared. Turned out she really was hungry and the thought of pizza was too much to pass up. Lori shut the computer and went to join her mother it would do her some good to not think about her cousin.

XXXXX

It was always interesting going out to meals with her wife or daughter. Both Kryptonians would scarf down whatever was placed in front of them (except for Kale and honestly Lena had no idea why they hated it so much). Kara was a bit better at pacing herself having had to keep her identity secret from Lena for years. Lori on the other hand (having been influenced by her cousin at a young age) would just stuff her mouth. She currently had three slices of pizza stacked on one another and was doing her best to fit as much as possible in her mouth. Lena could have yelled at her but she found it amusing. The only reason it didn’t bother her more was the fact Lori didn’t try talking with her mouth full.

“I finally figured out the issue with the L-tech prosthetic leg,” Lori said between bites. “We’ll have to do a service update, there is an issue causing the joints to lock up. The signals from the nerves aren’t reaching the prosthetic.”

They had been working on the issue for over two months and hadn’t made a bit of progress. Lena was impressed that Lori had figured out the problem on her own. The L-tech was extremely complex even L-Corp technicians were having difficulty with it. Lori was brilliant, having shared both her mother’s intelligence. It would be a pain in the ass to fix the problem but at least they finally had an idea of how to implement the fix.

“Good work,” Lena said with a smile. “I’ll make sure the tech know exactly what’s going on. How did you figure this out?”

Lori finished scarfing down another two slices of pizza before shaking her head. “I may or may not have gotten my hands on the data send to L-Corp from Kelly’s prosthesis.” Kelly’s leg having been a prototype (and also been given to an L-Corp employee and family member) transmitted data to L-Corp. It had been the basis for the gen-1 prosthetics. Even after L-Corp moved onto production of the gen-2 prosthetics the data still came in. Lori kept tabs on it because she knew Kelly would be having trouble. If she didn’t get it worked on soon she would be in extreme pain. If she had one of the newer models she’d be fine but she didn’t. She had been dumb enough to run off before they could fix the issues they had found early on in production.

“You know better than to go through confidential L-Corp files Lori,” Lena had lectured her on multiple occasions as to why she wasn’t allowed to do that. Yet her daughter still kept doing it, though recently it had been concentrated on Kelly.

“Like you don’t keep tabs on Kelly,” Lori muttered.

She had noticed just how close her cousin and mother were. She knew Kelly loved working at L-Corp and that Lena trusted her almost as much as she trusted her own wife and daughter. There were things Kelly knew about Lena that even Lori didn’t know. She never understood the connection between the two of them. In a way it made sense. Where Lena started out with a loving mother before ending up in the care of a woman who resented her, Kelly had started life with a man who hated her before ending up in the care of two women who loved her unconditionally. It bothered Lori that her cousin knew Lena better than she did. Then again Lori knew Lena might have told Kelly things in a strict attempt to make Kelly understand.

“I don’t,” Lena said matter-of-fact. “Sometimes it’s better to let people go so they can figure themselves out.”

“How would you know?” Lori said crossing her arms.

“Because I’ve been lost before,” Lena admitted. “Kara tried for the longest time to pull me out of the darkness but I refused to see it. It was only after she gave up on me that I realized how wrong it was.”

“Everyone knows you are the good Luthor,” Lori was sure Lena was just saying that to get her to drop the Kelly subject.

Lena sighed. She didn’t like talking about her time working on Non Nocere, a horrible project that’s eventual end was the catalyst leading to Lex’s second death, not at her hands that time. Those who knew about it never spoke about it. The time of Leviathan was a time they all wanted to forget. Lena never wanted to tell Lori about it, she had never planned on telling Kelly either, it was her greatest shame. She had been used by her brother again, he turned her project for good into something for his own gain. But then she saw how trapped Kelly was by her family ties. Lena knew what it was like to be nothing more than her last name. She had wanted Kelly to know that it wouldn’t always be like that. Lori on the other hand didn’t really need to know.

“I worked side by side with Lex for a while,” Lena admitted. “I chose to do so at the expense of who I was. This was after the Crisis, after Kara came to me, having given up on trying to convince me to change. Things weren’t great.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lori didn’t understand.

“Your cousin was thrust into a situation that forced her to face her biggest trauma, a trauma she had spent sixteen years trying to forget,” Lena said. “The entire time we were fighting Thorul and Warden and Donovan, she was fighting with herself. I can’t tell you what she was feeling but I can tell you she wasn’t in a good place.”

“Is that why you gave up on her?” Lori snapped.

“I have never given up on her, and neither should you,” Lena said calmly. “But you can’t force her to come home when she isn’t ready. She’s going to make bad decisions, we just have to trust she’ll come out of this.”

Lori crossed her arms. She didn’t exactly believe her mom. Kelly needed to be brought home. It wasn’t just because Lori wanted her cousin back it was also because of her leg. After a year it was safe to say Kelly had no intention of coming back home any time soon.

“She’ll come back Lori,” Lena said trying to comfort her daughter. “I did.”

“Is that what that DEO business was about,” Lori asked suddenly realizing the only thing that would make Kara leave the country was a request from Alex. “She’s going after Kelly?”

Lena shook her head. She was firm in the belief Kelly would come back in her own time. She understood Alex and Maggie’s desire to have their daughter back home or even just in contact with them. If Lori had disappeared (granted after she was over eighteen) Lena was sure she would do everything to bring her daughter home. But it wasn’t the same. Kelly was fighting demons none of them understood, demons she wanted no help fighting. Until she figured that out no amount of begging or brute force would bring her home. Not a single one of the Danvers family seemed to understand that.

“Lori let them do their jobs,” was all Lena could think of to say.

She had hoped lunch wouldn’t devolve into talking about Kelly but clearly with recent happenings that was wishful thinking. She didn’t know what to tell Lori that would make Kelly’s departure easier to understand. Lena was sure Kelly had never intended to hurt Lori so much. If she had to guess staying probably hurt Kelly more. She knew what that was like to feel trapped by her family history. She knew what it was like to feel like she needed to run.

Lena was about to reach out to comfort her daughter when Lori’s head shot up. She whipped around in her seat looking for something Lena didn’t see. She was about to ask when Lori leapt across the table grabbing Lena from her chair pulling her to the ground. Just as they hit the floor the glass window they were next to exploded inward showing them in shards of glass. Lori was up in an instant trying to find whatever had just shattered the window. Lena saw it before she did. It was another one of those aliens that tore into Kelly’s shoulder when everything started to go to hell. The DEO still had one caged and had taken to calling it a Mauler because of how it tore through its prey. They were starting to see more and more of them, which was becoming concerning because no one knew where they were coming from.

“Are you okay?” Lori said helping Lena to her feet.

“I’m fine,” Lena assured her.

Her phone was ringing. It wasn’t a surprise when she saw it was Alex. The DEO must have picked up on the Mauler’s distinctive signature.

“Before you say anything I already know you’re going to say no but my team is five minutes out and you are right there,” Alex said the second Lena picked up the phone.

“She’s already at it,” Lena said realizing Lori had already darted off and was now a blur on red and blue. They really needed to adjust the colors on her costume so she looked less like Supergirl and more like her own hero.

Lori dodged to the right as the Mauler lunged at her again. It whipped around baring its teeth at her a deep growl rising from its throat. Her cousin had always referred to the beast as an ugly sonofabitch, Lori was in the same mind set. It was ugly and it smelled like dirty gym shoes. It lunged at her again. She waited for it to get close then hit it with an uppercut. It let out a sharp whine shaking its head. She followed up with her heat vision before it had a chance to recover. It wasn’t a difficult fight, Lori had a lot more finesse than her cousin not to mention even if the Mauler did bite her it wouldn’t break her skin.

The Mauler collapsed on its side just as multiple DEO vehicles arrived. In the lead vehicle was Alex. She was the first one out, heading straight for Lori. Her agents filed out behind her, moving to contain the alien. Lena was keeping her distance. There were enough articles about her relationship with Supergirl she didn’t need the tabloids to start with the second super.

“You took that down fast,” Alex remarked glancing over her shoulder at the agents struggling to get the Mauler in the back of the truck. “And without a scratch. Color me impressed.”

“Learned from the best,” Lori beamed. Kara had been training her a lot more in the past year. She didn’t exactly want to become the next Supergirl but she figured she might as well learn incase Kara was out of commission.

“Get out of here,” Alex said. “We’re already having enough problems with the press. Thanks for the help. Good work kiddo.”

Lori took off not wanting to deal with the press either, she really just wanted to go home and not deal with anything else. Her mom waved to her before she left, letting her know it was okay. As she was going she continued to listen to Alex, she could hear her aunt speaking with Lena.

“How’s she doing?” Alex was asking.

“She’s still angry,” Lena said.

“It won’t be long, we think we found her,” Alex said.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing Alex.”

“You aren’t the only one.”

Lori didn’t know if the conversation continued because she tuned it out. Alex had been on Lena’s side about Kelly since day one, having maintained that Kelly would come back when she was ready. It appeared she had changed her tune and was now actively wanting to bring Kelly back. That was good, Lori could use that to her advantage, piggyback on their investigation and find Kelly first. Talk some sense into her. Or if it came to it, beat some sense into her. Kelly could take a hit and Lori knew she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from punching Kelly in the face. Really she just wanted to throw her cousin into the sun but that was a bit much.

She landed on her window sill, slowly opening the window before hopping in. She didn’t have the high-tech suit her mom did so she had to physically change out of it. After a minute she jumped onto her bed, now comfy in her sweats and a t-shirt, her phone in her hands. She had a couple of messages from Ben asking her if she wanted to go bowling, a message from Kara telling her she loved her and would be home tomorrow so they could watch a movie. She sighed when she saw she had six messages from Nick. He had taken to checking in on her as much as he could. Lori once asked him why he felt the need to look after her, it wasn’t like they were related. Nick had told her he knew Kelly would want someone to watch after her cousin, so he took on the role of big brother. He also said he considered the Danvers family his family because they treated him as such.

Secretly Lori knew he was doing this because he had a huge crush on Kelly but had never acted on it. She texted him back letting him know everything was good and he could stop checking in on her. She appreciated his concern but he was one of the couple people who defended Kelly and she couldn’t forgive him for that. She had no idea how he out of all people could be so alright with Kelly bolting without saying a word to him. Maybe living in denial was easier for him. She really didn’t feel like dealing with him that day.

Lori tossed her phone aside knowing Lena would be returning to L-Corp for the rest of the afternoon, leaving Lori to her own devices. There was a lot she could be working on, she was early admittance to MIT as well as National City University she still hadn’t decided which she wanted to go to. She was tempted to go to NCU to stay close to her family but then again she could always fly home between classes at MIT.

None of that was appealing. She really wanted to go after Kelly now that she knew the DEO was working on it. She reached for her laptop. She would find her before they did and she would talk her into coming back. Kelly would listen to her, that’s why she had kept silent about her departure to Lori. Because she knew Lori could talk her out of it. She would get as far as she could today, if she was lucky she would find her soon.

XXXXX

Lena ended up getting home sometime after midnight. She had gotten suck working on the L-tech fix not trusting her technicians to fix it in a timely manner. Part of her was hoping that she would see Kara sitting on the couch waiting for her. Of course Kara was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t much of a surprise whatever was keeping her at the DEO required her to work late. Lena couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed, she did the same thing all the time. What she did find strange was that she didn’t even hear Lori shuffling around. Lori had become somewhat of a night owl. It was rare that she went to bed before one in the morning.

She went back to Lori’s room, lightly knocking on the door. When there was no answer Lena slowly opened the door finding Lori passed out on her bed, her laptop still open and bright next to her. She sighed as she moved across the room to collect Lori’s laptop. Normally she wouldn’t snoop, that was something her mother had done and she had sworn she would never do that to her kids. But she couldn’t ignore the screen.

Lena had known Lori was trying to find her cousin but she hadn’t realized just how far she had gone. Not only did Lori have the data the DEO had only received earlier that day but she had calculated where Kelly might go next. She had to admit she was impressed with Lori’s abilities but she was also worried. If Lori’s calculations were right Kelly was going to go to one of the vaults her brother had all over the world. One Lena had converted into a lab for studying alien tech, it was also used by the DEO. Lena had no idea why Kelly would want to go there she didn’t even know why it was so important Kara go to find Kelly but she guessed whatever it was had to do with this.

“Kelly what have you gotten yourself into…”

Lori stirred in her bed mumbling something in her sleep. Lena smiled shutting the computer and setting it aside. She could be mad about Lori hacking a government agency later, right now she felt like letting her daughter sleep. She would just have to tell Kara to keep an eye on Lori from then on so she didn’t try something stupid.

XXXXX

Lori woke up sometime around four in the morning. She noticed her computer had somehow wound up on her desk, Lena had probably moved it at some point during the night. She sat up stretching moving her neck from side to side. When she got up this early she liked to sneak out of the apartment to sit up on the roof for a couple hours. She hopped out of bed floating just above the floor to avoid the creaky floorboards outside her room. She floated down the hall to check her parents’ bedroom to make sure they were still asleep. Their door was cracked open enough for her to see her two moms curled together under their covers. So long as they were asleep it wouldn’t be hard for her to leave.

The night air was cool but it didn’t bother her. She sat at the edge with her legs dangling over. She liked it up there when she was alone. It was one of the only places in the city someone could go to see all the stars in the sky. When she was younger Kara used to bring her to the roof to tell her about Krypton and Argo City, naming constellations and stars. Lori had always loved those nights spending time with Kara. Sometimes she would hang out with her cousin on top of the roof. Kelly never remembered the names of the constellations but she would always let Lori spout them out because it made her kid cousin happy. They hadn’t done that for years. Lori thought the last time they spent time watching the stars was when Lori was eleven. Back then Kelly didn’t have the Haranel in her system yet. She hadn’t even been Flare yet, she had just been Kelly.

She missed those days when neither of them were fighting aliens or bad guys. They left all of that to their parents. Then Kelly got sick and suddenly she was off being a vigilante like their uncle James. Everything had changed then. Kelly had always been a gifted kinetic from a young age. It was something she was just good at, even without the Haranel she would have become a great hero. But that incident when she was sixteen was what fueled her passion and turned her into the Flare. She was still the Kelly Lori had always know but there had just been something different about her. Then Warden had appeared and it had just torn the two of them farther apart.

Sometimes she wondered why bad things always happened to Kelly. She had been abused by her biological father, had been poisoned when she was sixteen (it had been one of those wrong place wrong time things, Lori had been there too but her cousin had gotten her out). Then at twenty-one her abusive father had been released from prison, another version of Lillian Luthor had set her sights on her and Warden had nearly killed her. Alex had the same unlucky streak having nearly drown, been shot, nearly killed by Reign, almost killed by Nazi’s the list went on. It must have been a Danvers thing because all of them had a long list of bad things happening to them. Everyone but Lori that is. The worst she had experienced was a kryptonite device attached to her neck.

She was tired of being protected by everyone. Kelly was sixteen when she started acting as a vigilante. Lori had recently turned sixteen, she was already being trained by Kara, and she could easily be the next Supergirl. Her family could stop protecting her and she could start protecting them. She would start by bringing Kelly home. Everyone else was considering doing the same thing, the only difference was Lori wasn’t going to hesitate to use force. Kelly would come home one way or another.


	4. Kara and Lena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 4 (finally) been real busy with work and everything and am trying to take a little extra time to edit chapters. We'll get back to the action and stuff next chapter like its going to pick up fast. I enjoyed writing Lena and Kara I don't do much for them so it was nice to just do a chapter with them and their various interactions with everyone. So I hope you like this, thanks so much for reading and as always enjoy.

It was almost two in the morning when Kara finally shuffled back to her bedroom she shared with Lena. Her wife and daughter were both fast asleep breathing evenly in their separate rooms. Kara was glad neither of them had waited up for her. She had spent the entire day moving between Canada and the DEO. They had found the site of where Kelly had last used her powers. There had most definitely been a struggle, there were multiple craters and scorched Earth where the two had fought. Other than that there was no trace of them. Neither had been injured which concerned Kara. That meant that they had left the area together probably willingly. She had spent the majority of the day flying around trying to get a hit on Kelly’s heartbeat, it was how she use to track her sister but Kelly was better at hiding herself and Kara wasn’t sure how. The rest of the day had been spent at the DEO. Alex had asked her to stay for a mission brief that they didn’t even have yet. Her sister had done a complete 360 about going after Kelly now wanting to actively be tracking her. Kara agreed but wasn’t a fan of being roped into the planning. She was tired and she hadn’t seen her family in over twenty-four hours.

She took her time undressing making sure not to make too much noise. Lena stirred but never fully woke up. She knew her wife was probably tired, with everything going on at L-Corp since the launch of the L-tech prosthetics it amazed Kara that Lena was still standing. Kara slipped into the bed next to her pressing herself up against Lena’s back. Almost immediately she began to drift off, being completely exhausted from work.

“You’re home late,” Lena mumbled.

“I think Alex is still mad about me interrupting her anniversary,” Kara said lightly pressing a kiss to Lena’s neck.

“I don’t blame her,” Lena said turning around to bury her face in Kara’s shoulder. “She has my permission if she needs to keep you late again.”

“Traitor,” Kara said with a yawn.

“Is Lori still in her room?”

“Yeah, it’s a little early for her to be sneaking up to the roof.”

Kara had figured out one night when Lori was fourteen that she would sneak out of the house in the middle of the night to sit up on the roof. It hadn’t been something they had been worried about, she only ever stayed out for an hour than came back in. Since Kelly left Lori’s trips to the roof had become more frequent and much longer. Neither of them had ever brought it up with her for fear that she would start randomly disappearing to somewhere else completely. Kara wasn’t keen on making a trip to the Fortress of Solitude to look for her daughter at four in the morning.

“DEO work tomorrow?” Lena asked sounding more tired with each passing minute.

“No I have a backlog of work at CatCo, I’ll be there unless something happens,” Kara said.

“I’m sure your boss would understand if you had to step out,” Lena mumbled before finally drifting into unconsciousness.

Kara smiled to herself. She rarely got normal days at CatCo anymore with the city facing crisis after crisis. With Kelly gone Supergirl rarely got a day off. It was only recently that Lori started to step in when Kara wasn’t around. Kara had forgotten how nice it was to have another hero around to assist. Her sister had been semi-retired from the field for about six years, James hadn’t been Guardian for over fifteen years and Nia had other priorities. She wasn’t as interested in bringing Kelly home as she was arresting Warden and ensuring her niece hadn’t switched sides. That was something she could worry about in the morning. Right now she just wanted sleep to take her.

XXXXX

She woke up at seven to her wife clinging onto her like a koala still fast asleep. Kara had to carefully untangle herself from Lena, being as careful as possible so she didn’t wake her. She quickly changed into sweats and a hoodie before going to check on Lori. Usually their daughter was up and moving before them. Kara didn’t hear her. It could have meant she left early but she doubted that. She popped her head into Lori’s room, confirming what she already knew. Kara sighed shaking her head. Lori kept falling asleep on the roof on the nights she went up there and every morning Kara would carry her back down stairs. It had always confused her how her daughter managed to fall asleep outside on the roof.

Kara made her way up to the roof finding her daughter propped up against the ledge fast asleep. She chuckled to herself at the sight. She had no idea how her daughter found that position comfortable enough to fall asleep. Kara went over to her, kneeling down to gently shake Lori awake. Her daughter swatted at her not quite ready to wake up but Kara persisted.

“What’cha doing up here kiddo,” Kara asked taking a seat directly next to Lori. “I think your bed might be a little more comfortable.”

“Maybe I like being uncomfortable,” Lori mumbled. She leaned into Kara who was happy to wrap her arm around her daughters shoulder. “Beats listening to your snoring.”

“I don’t snore,” Kara said with a chuckle. “That would be your mother.”

“I’m going to tell her your said that.”

“And I’ll tell her what happened to her kale chips.”

Lori gasped pretending to be insulted that Kara would even threaten such a thing. In reality they were both guilty about the disappearance of Lena’s kale chips.

Kara chuckled. It was a rare instance that she would have quality alone time with her daughter. Between work at the DEO and Catco and Lori being extremely busy with school the only time they really spent together was when they were training. It made Kara feel a bit guilty. She would grab at any moment she had with her daughter, even if it was only a few quiet minutes sitting on the roof.

“I heard about the Mauler yesterday,” Kara said after a moment. “Keep that up and National City won’t need me anymore.”

“As if,” Lori said shaking her head. “This city is your responsibility, I don’t want it.”

She heard the words that remained unspoken from Lori _Kelly did._ Kara sighed, it was true with each passing day Kelly’s dream had started to shift from working for the DEO to looking after the city once Kara retired (if she ever did). Lori had never wanted that, she liked helping people but she was more interested on helping people the way Lena did, through science.

In order to keep the moment from going light-hearted to somber Kara nudged Lori in a silent ask to get her to stand up.

“Come on lets go make breakfast,” Kara pulled Lori to her feet. “I was thinking pancakes.”

Lori shook her head, they had pancakes almost every morning. “Bacon and eggs.” Kara chuckled she could deal with that. Hopefully they had enough bacon to make the two of them happy. She could always get more if not. Between the two of them they went through a lot of bacon.

When they got back downstairs Lena was sitting on the couch sipping on a cup of coffee. She glanced at them, shook her head then went back to reading whatever article had caught her attention in the latest issue of CatCo magazine. She wasn’t going to bring up how unhealthy it was to fall asleep outside like Lori did because it would fall on deaf ears. Lori couldn’t get sick which made her a bit more reckless than others.

“How many eggs do you want love?” Kara asked as she dug in the fridge.

“Two is fine,” Lena replied. “Sunny side up please.”

“Gladly,” Kara handed the carton of eggs to Lori. “You’re on egg duty.”

“No powers in my kitchen!” Lena warned.

She had had a hell of a time getting the scorch marks out of her counter during their last mishap with Kara’s heat vision. After that she had banned all powers from the kitchen, and the majority of the house. Though Kara broke the rule occasionally, but Lena wasn’t going to complain about that.

Kara and Lori were a well-oiled machine in the kitchen. Neither of them really spoke, but moved around each other with ease. Lena loved watching her two girls working together in relative peace. She never thought she would have a life like this. She never thought she’d marry a Super, then have her daughter. Her mother must be rolling in her grave and Lena couldn’t be happier about that.

“Here mom, eggs and bacon,” Lori said coming up to Lena with a plate in her hands.

“Thank you,” Lena said accepting the plate handed to her.

Kara came over to join Lena on the couch while Lori hovered at the counter. Kara was about to ask when Lori suddenly went into panic mode and sprinted to her room cursing under her breath about being really late to something. She emerged a second later fully dressed attempting to throw her backpack over her shoulder. Kara watched her grab a handful of bacon before running out the door with only a wave goodbye.

“What was that about,” Kara asked.

“She has something to do for a project,” Lena said going back to reading while she picked at what was left on her plate.

“She took all the bacon.”

Lena held out her plate, offering Kara the last two slices of bacon we had. “You have three seconds before my offer is rescinded.” Kara didn’t need to be told twice, she took what was offered happily munching on it while Lena smiled to herself. Quiet mornings like this were few and far in between. She absolutely loved sitting in a comfortable silence with her wife in the early morning. It was peaceful, enjoyable, something Lena had once taken for granted.

“So…Lena…love of my life, mother of my child, best friend forever-”

“Stop fishing Kara, I don’t know where Kelly is headed.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

“Right.”

Kara crossed her arms in a blatant attempt to pout. Lena chuckled but refused to look over at her wife. Kara could pout all she wanted, Lena wasn’t going to say anything. She didn’t exactly know what Kelly was up too even though she was sure Lori had figured out where her cousin was headed. Lena didn’t exactly agree with the rest of the family when it came to Kelly. When Lena had gone bad she had needed some convincing to change but the rest had been on her own. She believed Kelly needed the same treatment, though from what she could tell her niece hadn’t changed sides, she was simply using her enemy to her advantage.

“You’re not helping her are you?” Kara almost didn’t want to ask. She had made assumptions in the past that had turned Lena against her and ruined their friendship once.

“Of course not,” Lena said. “I may not agree with Alex and Maggie’s methods but I won’t go completely against them either.”

“I would,” Kara admitted while she collect the plates to take them to the sink. “I get them wanting her back but…if she doesn’t want that who are we to deny her? She’s an adult and yes she does have a responsibility here but I don’t think that’s as important as figuring herself out.”

Lena was surprised at Kara’s stance. She knew her wife would help Alex no matter how she felt but to hear her openly admit she didn’t agree with Maggie and Alex was shocking. It wasn’t even Alex that was the problem, up until the other night Alex had no interest in finding Kelly. Warden being in the picture had changed her tune quickly. Lena assume it was because they believed Kelly was being used by their enemy. Or by the very least had willingly joined the woman.

“I should be leaving,” Kara said. “See you for lunch?”

“Probably not, I’ll be stuck in meetings all day,” Lena said with a sigh. “I’ll be lucky if I make it out for dinner.”

“Just make sure you eat something today,” Kara said. “I’m not above crashing a meeting.”

“I know you aren’t,” Lena said with a chuckle. “I’ll see you later Kara.”

Kara took the extra second to kiss Lena goodbye before she darted out of the apartment. Lena waited until she was sure Kara was out of the building. The most annoying thing about her wife (and subsequently her daughter) was their eavesdropping whether it be on purpose or on accident. She knew Kara would exactly approve of what she was thinking of doing, but she had good reasoning behind it. Lori had figured out Kelly would probably have to go to one of L-Corp’s remote facilities which were highly guarded. Lena didn’t exactly want her security force in danger. She knew Kelly would never severely hurt anyone but she knew Kelly would face resistance and would have to fight. Lena preferred to minimize the amount of contact Kelly had with any resistance.

The only problem with cutting back on security was that she didn’t know which facility Kelly would target. There were six of them scattered throughout the world some easier to get to than others. She had no idea if Kelly would want to make it more difficult on herself to throw the DEO off or go where it logically made sense and deal with the possibility of facing a DEO team. She was sure Kelly would avoid fighting at all costs since she was with Warden but there was no way to know that for sure.

Ultimately Lena decided to hold off pulling the security teams until she had exhausted all options. She was sure Kelly would move soon but she wouldn’t be in any rush. Kelly had become an expert in avoiding detection and wouldn’t risk being caught at this point. Lena wasn’t one to take risks any more but she needed to when it came to Kelly. She would decide later and fill Alex in, it wasn’t Lena’s decision to make when it came to bringing Kelly back.

XXXXX

Kara stretched between typing the lines for her most recent article, another piece highlighting L-Corp and its progress in the medical field. She had tried to avoid writing articles pertaining to her wife since it created a conflict but Lena was so careful about who she allowed inside information that sometimes it had to be Kara who did the interviews. She typically passed off the approved information to William but there were times she had no choice but to take on the article herself.

“Kara do you have a minute,” William asked leaning over her desk to glance at her article. “There’s a story the boss wants up to look into.”

“Are we talking about Rojas or Lena?” Kara never knew who was asking for what after Lena took CatCo back over but left Andrea to oversee everything. Lena had final say on the articles that were published, unless it was about L-Corp to keep from creating a conflict (though it still did most of the time).

“Rojas,” William said, nodding to himself. “It’s about that Kryptonian we’ve been seeing more of since Flare disappeared.”

“Lena will never approve that article,” Kara said.

“Why not?” he came around her desk so he could kneel down next to her. “She’s close with Supergirl wouldn’t it make since she be friends with this one too?”

Kara rolled her eyes. He wasn’t wrong, Lena definitely did know the other Kryptonian, but Kara hated that his reasoning was simply because Lena knew Supergirl. Something about that thinking rubbed her the wrong way. It was the same reasoning that Kara knew Supergirl so therefore she must know Superman (again she did but she couldn’t exactly tell him all three of them were related).

“I think it has more to do with the fact that the Kryptonian is a child,” Kara said unable to think of any other legitimate reason. “Or at least a teenager, probably.”

“I think it’s worth looking into,” William said with one of his bright smiles. “Maybe you could work some of your magic, get us a statement from the new girl?”

“I’ll think about it,” Kara resigned herself to giving him some hope so he wouldn’t continue to bother her about it. “In the mean time I finished the article about the rally if you want to take a look at it.”

He thanked her taking the rough draft from her desk and leaving for his own. She had warmed up to William over the years but he still bothered her sometimes. His methods sometimes push the boundaries of what was acceptable but overall he was a good man. They worked together so often that they had become good friends but he still didn’t know the truth. He was a reporter and not good at staying quiet. She didn’t want to put her daughter on his radar by confirming there was a second Kryptonian in National City. Lori didn’t even want to be the next Supergirl, she was just stepping in for her cousin who had left the city without its second best defender.

“Kara could I speak with you in my office please?”

Kara glanced up from her computer to see Andrea Rojas standing at her office. She sighed nodding at her boss. Truth be told Kara didn’t particularly like Andrea, when she had been in charge of CatCo she had turned it into nothing but another gossip magazine. Kara had been relieved when Lena had taken the company over again, only leaving Andrea to oversee the daily operations but nothing more. She knew there was some bad blood between Lena and Andrea but she had never questioned either party about it knowing she’d catch hell for it.

XXXXX

Lena glanced over the man in front of her. He was tall, muscular perfectly filling out the shirt he had on. Short brown hair and deep brown eyes his mouth set in a thin line. His file said something about him being ex-military. From what she was reading he was the perfect candidate for her head of security but just because he was perfect on paper didn’t mean he could handle the position. Lena had gone through six different Heads of Security since Kelly left. None had had the stomach for the job, always quitting after the second assassination attempt on her. People were getting bolder since Kelly left, beforehand the amount of attempts had been cut in half. Kelly had that intimidating air about her the forced people to back off. Lena missed that kind of security.

“Your resume is certainly impressive,” Lena said looking over it once more. He was definitely more qualified than Kelly ever was.

“Except?” he leaned forward in his chair with a slight grimace.

“I’ll be completely honest with you Mr. Foley I’ve gone through six different people as my head of security since Kelly Danvers left,” Lena informed him. “What makes you different? How can I know you won’t quit when things get to dangerous for your liking.”

“I’m no coward ma’am,” Foley said.

“Neither were they,” Lena said leaning forward challenging him. “They were all qualified for this job, four of them were ex-military just like you. Yet the position continues to become vacant after a couple months.”

She didn’t need a head of security, Kara did that job well enough on her own, but her wife insisted she take precautions. Kelly had a much wider net as Head of Security, having overseen multiple satellite labs that L-Corp owned. All of the new hires only oversaw her personal security. She had trusted Kelly with a lot of L-Corp secrets, she would never trust these new people.

“I understand that Ms. Danvers was good at her job,” Foley started. “I don’t expect you to like me as well as you liked your niece but I can assure you I can handle this job.”

It was public knowledge that Kelly Danvers had once been L-Corp’s Head of Security and that she had taken a leave of absence after a car accident (the only thing Alex could fabricate that made sense). She had gotten some heat from people that she had hired her own niece into such a high position but she had defended her decision. Kelly hadn’t been hired because she was family, she had been hired because no one else had the balls to handle the job. She was tired of hiring people, it was a tedious process that could be done by someone else but Lena wanted to talk to each person on her own. She thought she’d have a better grasp on her security team if she personally met with them.

“Alright Mr. Foley, with your background in Special Forces it would be stupid for me to turn you away,” Lena said with a resigned sigh. “I hope your right I’d hate to have to hire another Head of Security in two months.”

“Thank you,” he said rising to shake her hand. “I won’t disappoint you Mrs. Luthor.”

Lena took the hand offered to her with a firm shake. She was used to being disappointed by the security she hired, it had been like that for years. Supergirl and Guardian had been better security than the people she actually paid to protect her. She hoped that Ryan Foley would be a different story.

“I’ll have Jesse escort you to your office,” Lena said. “I’ll have someone come by to go over operations with-”

The door to her office flew open slamming into the wall hard enough to cause damage. Foley had whipped around putting himself between Lena and the door. Lena’s hand went to the drawer which housed the gun she owned but it fell away when she heard Jesse’s exasperated voice trying to inform Alex that Lena was busy. Alex looked angry, but that could have been because of Jesse, though Lena wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

“Relax Mr. Foley this is Alex Danvers my wonderful sister-in-law,” Lena said with a bite of sarcasm. “Who, apparently, forgot how to knock.”

“We need to talk,” Alex said firmly. “Now.”

“Jesse, please take Mr. Foley to his office,” Lena said her eyes locked on Alex. “And cancel my next meeting, something tells me I won’t be able to make it.”

“Right away Mrs. Luthor,” Jesse said ushering Foley out of the room. “With me Mr. Foley, you do not want to get in to the middle of one of their arguments.”

“That bad?” he asked as she pushed him through the door.

“You have no idea.”

The door shut behind them cutting off the rest of their conversation. Lena went over to her liquor cabinet taking out the bottle of scotch she kept there. She poured to glasses holding one out for Alex. At first the older woman shook her head but almost immediately changed her mind and took it. Lena lead her over to the couch, which over the years had quickly become the spot where Lena gave advice to varying Danvers family members. Last year she had sat there with Kelly, discussing her recovery and the long road she had to walk.

“What’s going on Alex,” Lena asked doing her best to stay calm even though she was extremely annoyed. “Some of us have companies to run.”

“Someone has been hacking the DEO servers,” Alex admitted slamming the scotch. “Brainy informed me this morning. We think it’s Kelly, I don’t know how she would hack our servers but she’s with Warden anything is possible.”

Lena almost choked on her glass of scotch. It wasn’t so much that Alex had found out the DEO was being hacked but the fact she thought it was Kelly doing it. Lena hadn’t realized how bad things had gotten for Alex to believe Kelly had actually betrayed them and it hurt. Kelly wasn’t a bad person, she was a lost individual unsure of who she was supposed to be.

“It wasn’t Kelly,” Lena said once her throat stopped burning. “Lori’s been tracking Kelly using confidential L-Corp information and the DEO servers.”

Alex laughed, she laughed loud enough to scare Lena into almost dropping her glass. She couldn’t tell if it was one of those laughs Alex had when she was angry or one of utter exasperation. If a sixteen year old could have a secret government agency who was to say someone else couldn’t? Alex was still laughing when she went over to pour more scotch.

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or angry or just annoyed,” Alex said when she finally stopped laughing. “Who knows how compromised the DEO is…”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Lena said. “It was a base level encryption she had to break, something even Kelly could do.”

“She find anything?” Alex said clearly defeated. “We haven’t had any luck since the spike we got the other day. She knows we’re looking and she know how to hide…”

Lena found herself biting her lip. On the one hand Lori had found something and narrowed down Kelly’s next move to one of four labs. On the other it was a shot in the dark with no guarantee that Kelly would go to any of those facilities. They had no idea why she would want to go to one of the labs either, they were in the dark when it came to her plans.

“Yes and no,” Lena said. “She might be going to one of L-Corps remote labs up north. There are three in her region but it’s only a guess. I’ve already reduced security at all three labs to minimalize collateral damage.”

“Will you give us access?”

“If that’s what you want,” Lena sighed. “I would let her go Alex, if she feels trapped it’s only going to make her more dangerous.”

Alex nodded, finishing off her glass of scotch. Lena could see that Alex was conflicted. She had no idea what that right thing to do was. Maggie wanted one thing, Lena and Kara were telling her to do another. There Alex was, in the middle wanting so badly to bring her daughter back, unharmed, but not wanting to force Kelly home when she wasn’t ready. Lena felt bad for her.

“I’ll keep you informed if we move in on any of the labs,” Alex said starting towards the door. “Do me a favor and keep Lori out of the DEO system.”

“I will,” Lena said. “Take care of yourself Alex, you look exhausted.”

“No more exhausted than I’ve been in the past year,” Alex said with a small smile. “Maybe I’ll take a nap or something…”

“Hold on Alex.”

Alex stopped with her hand on the door turning to face Lena. Her sister-in-law rose from her spot on the couch making her way over to Alex. She hesitated for a second before pulling Alex into a hug. Alex was surprised but eventually returned the hug. They rarely ever showed any kind of affection for one another. Alex liked Lena but they didn’t necessarily get along, both of them were to hard headed. Under the circumstances Lena had no issue initiating it. Alex looked like she need a hug.

“Whatever you need I’m here,” Lena assured her. “You and I both know the two of us work great together.”

“Thank you,” Alex said as she broke away. “And thanks for getting our door fixed. I honestly thought Mags was going to murder my sister.”

“I would have let her,” Lena said chuckling. “Call me if you need anything. I may be of more help than your sister.”

“You always are.”

Alex gave one last wave goodbye leaving Lena on her own. He watch told her she still had an hour before her next meeting. She had time to call Kara, take a short bit of personal time before she had to deal with a room full of men who didn’t respect her. She could bring a Kryptonian to her knees but couldn’t earn the respect of people who were far less qualified than her. Maybe she would call Kara, a little stress relief could go a long way and this may be the only chance they get before shit hit the fan.

XXXXX

Kara had the tendency to barge through people when she was in a hurry almost always forgetting how much stronger she was than regular people. She tried not to but in that moment she was in a rush. Andrea had sent her to get a statement for an article from an attack on an alien gathering that the NCPD was working on. Right after she had left the office Lena had called asking her to come by before her next meeting. She wanted to get the statement fast so she could swing by L-Corp, she could never say no to her wife.

Maggie didn’t look up to greet her when she came into her sister-in-law’s office. “Could you please no injure my detectives Kara,” she said with a bit of annoyance. “Science Division is down to four and one of them wants a transfer.”

“What for?”

“Getting side armed by my sister-in-law. You almost broke his shoulder.”

“Sorry…”

Maggie sighed shuffling some files in front of her. Kara could tell she was stressed with a growing pile of cases and shrinking number of detectives. Science Division had always been bottom of the barrel at the department. It was a shame it only had Maggie keeping it afloat. Kara was sure that if it weren’t for Maggie and the DEO it would have been dissolved years ago.

“What can I do for you Kara?”

“I was hoping to get something for an article,” Kara said. “That attack across town last week, can you give me a statement.”

“I cannot,” Maggie said. “It’s an open case Kara you know I can’t divulge any information at this time.”

“Andrea won’t be happy,” Kara mused. She had figured Maggie wouldn’t give her anything but she could at least tell Andrea she tried. “Shame.”

Maggie chuckled. “I’m glad you like pissing her off as much as I do.” They both had the same opinion of Andrea Rojas, the woman had been forced into serving Leviathan but she had a few practices that neither Maggie nor Kara agreed with. Half the time she would refuse to cooperate with the NCPD then would turn around and ask for a favor. After a while Maggie stopped taking her calls.

“Well Lena wants me to stop by so I’ll let you get back to work,” Kara said. “What are you and Alex doing tonight? Lena’s working late and I think Lori would like to spend some time with her aunts.”

“We were going over plans for…” Maggie stopped shaking her head. “I’ll talk to Alex, I’m sure we could hit Noonan’s or something?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kara said with a smile. “And Maggie? I know we don’t always get along but I do worry about you.”

“I love you too Kara,” Maggie said returning the smile. “Even though you’re a huge pain in my ass. Family is family.”

“I’ll see you tonight Maggie,” Kara said already heading out of the door. “No flaking.”

“Yeah whatever.”

Kara left with a big grin on her face, feeling slightly bad for running into Sara but the detective seemed to be alright. Sara was a good egg, she would go far in the department especially with Maggie backing her. She waved as Kara went by. Kara waved back as she went trying not to dart out of the office. She wanted to get to L-Corp as soon as possible, she would hate to disappoint her. She texted her just so she would be ready when Kara got there.

**_‘On my way, see you soon.’_ **

When she was sure she was alone Kara took off heading straight for the balcony of Lena’s office. She was looking forward to the forty minutes alone with Lena. It had been a hot minute since they had an opportunity to defile her office. She was glad they could finally have fun.


	5. The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy did I have trouble writing this chapter. I think it turned out fairly well hopefully you do too. Things are starting to get real so stick with me there is much more to come (this is going to be longer than I originally planned but whatever). Hopefully the next few updates won't take so long. To be honest this one was almost done the week I posted chapter 4 but y'know, life. ANYWAY, Thanks for reading and enjoy.

Warden rolled off the couch hitting the floor with a loud thud. She groaned her hands trapped underneath her. It was a painful position with the cuffs digging into her abdomen but she couldn’t get the leverage to roll over. She groaned into the floor, resigned to be stuck there until her captor took pity on her and turned her over.

“That’s a good look for you Warden,” Kelly said setting down what Warden guessed was a paper bag. “Need help?”

“Fuck you,” Warden growled.

“Suit yourself,” Kelly said hopping onto the bed. “I enjoy watching you struggle.”

Warden thrashed doing her best to roll over but the couch was hindering her progress. She eventually gave up only to feel a tendril wrap around on of her arms before yanking her onto her back. Above her Kelly was sitting on the bed with a smug grin on her face. The light around her hand twisted around her fingers like a snake. Warden groaned again as she sat up annoyed to be in the company of someone so immature.

“Can you take these off,” Warden asked holding up her hands.

“Are you going to behave?”

Kelly didn’t keep up the teasing, she wanted to piss Warden off enough that she wouldn’t get to comfortable in her presence. She went over to Warden and deactivated the restraints. Warden rubbed her wrists which looked raw, sleeping in the restraints was never comfortable. Kelly handed her the bag she had brought in before heading back to the bed to open up the burger Warden hadn’t noticed.

“What is this?”

“A burger best I could do with the money I have,” Kelly said. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a burger.”

“No M.R.E.’s were the only rations we got,” Warden said digging out the burger. “Even in the cult we never ate anything like this.”

Kelly snorted shoving a handful of fried into her mouth. “No wonder you’re a bad guy anyone deprived of a greasy burger is bound to be a lunatic.” Kelly laughed to herself, if only it were that simple. Living on M.R.E.’s sounded horrible when it wasn’t necessary, she supposed a person would get use to them after a while.

“Thanks I guess,” Warden said.

Kelly shrugged she needed Warden fit enough to storm what she assumed was a highly fortified base. She let Warden eat in relative silence turning her own attention to her leg when she finished her food. She needed the leg to cooperate for the next few days to keep her out of any serious trouble. She could feel Warden watch her with mixed curiosity but she ignored her. Her leg was still a sore spot for her, being simultaneously the worst and best thing to happen to her. Once this was done she could finally go back home and get it fixed.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Part of one,” Kelly said flexing her toes. “I need you to give me a rundown on Thorul’s facility. Once I know what we’re dealing with I’ll know how to proceed.”

Warden got to her feet moving around the room, stretching her legs. Nothing she could tell Kelly would prepare her for what they would face at the facility. Warden didn’t even know what changes Thorul had made. For all she knew they could infiltrate and be cut down right inside the door. What they were doing was a glorified suicide mission but if it meant getting her revenge on Thorul Warden would storm the gates of hell to get to her.

“Heavily fortified, heavily guarded it was built to withstand attacks from a Kryptonian,” Warden said.

“A Kryptonian that you killed?”

“Thorul has other enemies,” Warden said with a shrug. “Like the entire Cult of Rao. If they wanted to lay siege they could.”

“Why haven’t they?”

“There is a reason they call me Warden,” she said. “I ran the facility, under her guise, with an iron fist. I protected the facility and its occupants my entire adult life. I still would be had it not been for you.”

Kelly shook her head inserting a screw driver under a plate in her leg and twisting it slightly. It caused her toes to contract and the muscles just below her knee where the prosthesis was connected also contracted almost painfully. She bit her lip to keep from screaming as the muscles relaxed. Warden glanced over her shoulder at her but said nothing. Kelly could see it in her eyes, she had no regret for the pain she caused, it had been another job, another order.

“We’ll need weapons, I can’t go in weakened you have to take this dampener off.”

“Forget it,” Kelly said tossing the screwdriver aside. “We’ll get weapons, all non-lethal.”

“What a quarter staff and my axes?” Warden laughed.

“I haven’t touched a staff since you impaled me with part of mine,” Kelly said. “And your axes are lethal. I was thinking a chain might work. As for you, I’ll see what we can get.”

“So how do we get to my Earth,” Warden asked. “I suppose you have a plan for that.”

Kelly got off the bed making her way across the room to grab her pack. She set it on the dresser digging out a second L-Corp uniform.

“Simple infiltration,” Kelly said. “My aunt has a lab where she keeps one of those portal devices. I say we just walk in through the front door and steal it.”

“You want us to walk through the front door?”

“I’m Head of Security they won’t question me being there.”

“What makes you think they haven’t replaced you?”

She admitted that she had thought of that possibility. Lena had probably replaced her right after she left it would have made no sense to leave the position vacant when they had no idea when or if she would be returning. She was hedging her bets on Lena forgetting to update the remote facilities on her departure but if she had Kelly had another way to get in. Warden didn’t need to know all her secrets.

“Word travels slow in the corporate world,” Kelly said. “But if she has we’ll still get in.”

“Optimistic aren’t we?”

“Here put this on,” Kelly tossed the L-Corp uniform at Warden.

Warden let it fall to the ground having made no attempt to catch it. “I’m not wearing that,” she said kicking the uniform towards Kelly. The younger kinetic felt her eye twitch in annoyance. She was learning real fast just how difficult Warden could be. She had begun to wonder how Thorul kept her under control.

“Quit being a bitch and put it on,” Kelly said, this time throwing it so it nailed Warden in the face. “We move in a couple hours I have to gather some supplies, and a vehicle. Can I trust you to stay put?”

“You’re going to have to,” Warden said entering the bathroom. “What the hell happened to the sink? Nevermind. Go, I’ll be here.”

Warden slammed the door to the bathroom mumbling something under her breath. Kelly didn’t bother listening, she was setting a tripwire by the door that would incapacitate Warden if she tried to leave. She didn’t trust the woman as far as she could throw her. She just had to remember to deactivate it before she came through the door. It was DEO tech she stole right before she left in case she caught Warden and had to set a trap, now it was being used to babysit the woman. It didn’t matter, the sooner she left the sooner they could be on their way to the lab and one step closer to Thorul.

XXXXX

The weapons had been easy enough to come by, a thick chain for her (much like Ghost Rider) and a taser for Warden, they would pick something else up once they infiltrated the lab. The car had been a bit more difficult but after some persuading she managed to get a hold of a car that would at least get them to the border. They might have to hike the rest of the way or hitchhike but that was a chance they would have to take. She was on the way back, after having grabbed some extra food for the road when she had stumbled across a shop celling prepaid cellphones. She knew it was risky using one but there was someone she wanted to call that she hadn’t talked to in a while. Kelly had cut herself off from her family by choice but there was one of them who didn’t exactly know all that was going on.

“Eliza Danvers, she’s my grandmother,” Kelly said, wishing for the hundredth time that she had a direct line to Eliza. “Can I speak with her ple- as I said I’m her granddaughter Kelly Danvers…yes thank you.”

The hold music was annoying to say the least, she understood Eliza was getting old but she hated her being in a nursing home even though she had suggested it (much to Alex’s dismay). It was always hard seeing someone you loved and respected growing old, Kelly wasn’t looking forward to the day her parents had to go to a home. She was sure they would put up a fight no matter what she did.

“Hello?”

Kelly smiled at the voice she heard. She hadn’t spoken to Eliza in a year and she felt horrible about it.

“Hey grandma, it’s Kelly,” she said. “I thought I’d check in on you, we haven’t talked in a while.”

“It’s so good to hear from you,” Eliza said the joy in her voice evident. “What is with you three not a single word for months and then you call out of the blue.”

“I’ve been busy, off gallivanting, enjoying my freedom,” Kelly said. “Us Danvers are rebellious in our early twenties, I’m sure you’ve got stories of mom getting into trouble when she was my age.”

She could hear Eliza chuckling, it was enough to make her smile. Kelly knew about her mother’s partying when she was in college. It had been what led her to joining the DEO and eventually to run it. If she hadn’t been so rebellious she may have never ended up there and she would have never met Maggie. She also knew how Alex had been as a teenager thanks to Eliza telling her a few stories when she was younger. Kelly had never had much of a rebellious phase, though one could argue she was currently going through one.

“How’s your leg,” Eliza asked. “Alex said you were adjusting well to it.”

“Yeah it’s great, top of the line, you’d like it,” Kelly said. She hated discussing her leg it just made her feel like she had failed. Which she had, everyone that had gotten hurt that day had gotten hurt because of her. There was no pride in that. “I was thinking I would visit when I get back in town.”

“I would love that,” Eliza said. “I rarely ever see my grandkids.”

“What Lori hasn’t visited? I would think she’d be up there every week.”

“Well she’s been busy, she is early admittance to M.I.T. remember?”

No she didn’t because she had no idea. “Right, look I have to go, but I’ll try to visit soon, take care okay? You’re the only one who can keep mom in check.”

“Alright, goodbye Kelly, be careful,” Eliza said.

“Yeah…” Kelly said as she hung up and snapped the phone in half. She thought talking to her grandmother would help her feel better but in reality it just made her feel worse.

Hearing about Lori had hurt, knowing she had not only missed Lori’s sixteenth birthday (not to mention both her parents and aunts) but something her cousin had been working hard for. She would be seventeen soon, she wouldn’t need Kelly to look out for her any more. It was just one more thing on a growing list that reminded her how useless she was to them now. She couldn’t dwell on it for too long, there was a job to be done.

She made her way up the stairs to her hotel room, making quick work of the trip wire by crushing it in her hand. She didn’t need to keep it, it would serve no purpose as they moved. When she entered the room Warden was leaning against the wall in the L-Corp uniform Kelly had given her. It almost looked made for her. To Kelly it reminded her of the armor Warden had worn that night a year ago when she had nearly ended the Danvers family. The armor had been much larger making Warden look much bigger but the idea was the same, tactical gear made for easy movement.

“Let’s get moving, I want to be at the lab by morning, on your Earth by noon,” Kelly said. “Think you can handle that?”

“Let’s do it,” Warden said, “I follow your lead.”

Kelly grabbed her pack off the floor glancing over the room once to make sure nothing important would be left behind. When she was satisfied she nodded for Warden to follow her. The room was handled so they wouldn’t have to worry about that. They had a long cramped drive ahead of them that Kelly wasn’t looking forward to it.

“I’m driving, keep an eye out, who knows if they’re still searching for me,” Kelly said.

“They’re pretty determined to find you huh?”

“They’re my family, that’s what family does,” Kelly said starting the car. “Even if you don’t want them too.” 

Warden nodded but Kelly was sure that the woman didn’t understand. From what Kelly understood she had never had a family, no one cared enough about her. Warden was a weapon, nothing more, Kelly couldn’t help but feel for her. Donovan had seen her as nothing more than a weapon, he had wanted her to be just like him. She had people to pull her out of the darkness at a young age, Warden hadn’t had that.

“Doesn’t matter,” Warden said after a minute. “You going to drive or what?”

Kelly shook her head. It was going to be a very long day.

XXXXX

Lori stared at the plate of fries in front of her normally she would be all over them but today she just wasn’t hungry. She wish she had told Ben she was busy instead of telling him she would be happy to get lunch with him. He was always so nice to her it was hard to say no, he had done his best to keep her smiling since Kelly left.

“What the matter Lori?” he tried pushing the plate towards he but she just pushed it back. “Did something happen?”

“No, I’m just not hungry…” Lori said with a sigh, the cheese fries looked really good. “There’s a lot going on right now.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Lori said. “Can we just get out of here? Go on a walk or something?”

“Yeah sure,” he said. “I’ll get the check.”

She felt bad that he had paid for lunch that she hadn’t even tried but she could make it up to him later. He fell into step next to her as they went, his hands staying in his pockets knowing she probably didn’t want to be touched. Lori didn’t exactly know what they were supposed to be and she really didn’t want to figure it out today. She honestly wanted to go home, maybe she could distract herself from everything by working on her project.

“How are your moms?”

“They’re good, keeping busy,” Lori said. “Lena just hired someone else for security. Lot of boring stuff really.”

Ben nodded allowing them to fall back into a comfortable silence. They walked for a while ending up by the park. She had a lot of memories from there all involving her family. They used to come here for picnics or family gatherings. It had been the site of an attack six years ago, Lori had been ten, her cousin sixteen, it had been before the Haranel, back before Kelly changed. Her cousin had saved her that day at the risk of her own life, it had made Lori never want to be a superhero. Kelly on the other hand, once she recovered, wanted nothing more than to protect her city.

“Lori,” Ben was nudging her looking at her with a bit of concern.

“What?”

“Your phone is going off.”

Lori dug the phone out of her pocket, seeing it wasn’t either of her parents but a notification. Her heart started to pound. Kelly had used her L-Corp ID to gain access to one of the remote labs in Alaska. Lori had her now, if she could get there in time she could stop them.

“I have to go,” Lori said leaning up to peck him on the cheek. “Thank you for lunch and the walk. I’ll call you later.”

She was gone before he could say anything. Lori wanted to take off but she couldn’t until she was out of sight. It would only take her a couple of minutes to get to the lab but then she had to get in. It didn’t matter she would bring Kelly home by force if she had to Warden wasn’t going to take her cousin, she wouldn’t let that happen.

XXXXX

Warden kept her head down as Kelly navigated her way through the labs winding hallways. The kid had been right about infiltration, it had been the easiest method, the guards having let them roam freely once they saw it was Kelly Danvers. It was smooth sailing so far but Warden knew it wouldn’t last. Something would either go wrong here or when they got to Thorul’s facility. She was hoping whatever was going to go wrong would happen here, with Thorul it would be a death sentence.

“Almost there,” Kelly said pulling Warden from her thoughts. “I’ll need a minute to disable the lock, keep a lookout while I do.”

They rounded a corner finding themselves in an empty corridor with a door on the right about halfway down. Kelly nodded jogging over to it Warden stayed close to her giving her the room she needed. Warden was more of a smash and grab type of person but it seemed like Kelly knew exactly what she was doing.

“Where did you learn to do that,” Warden asked.

“DEO,” Kelly said. “I was taught a lot of things most people never learn. Almost got it.”

The security at the lab wasn’t as tough as it was at L-Corp. It had surprised Kelly how few people there were guarding the lab. She figured they had walked into a trap but she hadn’t said anything to Warden. They could get out of any trap easily with the portal device they could make a quick escape.

“Uh kid, we’ve got an incoming,” Warden said nearly backing into Kelly.

“It’s just a guard hold him off.”

“That isn’t a guard…”

Kelly glanced over Warden’s shoulder at whoever was approaching them. Warden was right it wasn’t a guard. They were in a lot more trouble than she had originally thought. She acted fast turning to the panel on the wall she smashed her fist through it causing the door to unlatch.

“Run!”

She grabbed Warden, shoving her through the door to give her a head start. She would have to stay back to hold her cousin back long enough for Warden to find the device. Kelly didn’t want to hurt her cousin but she wasn’t afraid to use force to keep her from getting in their way. The wall next to her exploded from Lori’s heat vision just before Kelly dove out of the way.

“Lori stop I can explain!”

“What’s there to explain, you’re working with the enemy!”

Kelly barely made it through the door before her cousin’s fist connected with her back sending her crashing into a table in front of her. Warden kept low and out of sight leaving Lori to Kelly while she searched for the device. Kelly rolled herself over the table kicking it in Lori’s direction before retreating farther back into the room. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Lori but Lori wasn’t giving her much of a choice.

“Anything?”

“No,” Warden shouted. “There’s too much shit here.”

Lori launched herself at Kelly pinning her cousin to the ground. Kelly barely missed being punched in the face. Next to her ear the tile floor cracked under the pressure. She thought Lori might actually be trying to kill her. Kelly grabbed Lori’s arm ripping it out from under her. Lori fell forward, tumbling off of Kelly giving her cousin the opportunity to put some distance between them. She saw the device on her left and went for it, if they could activate it they had a chance to get out. She threw it to Warden who caught it with ease.

“Program it I’ll hold her off then we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“Get away from her,” Lori shouted.

Her heat vision sliced through the room in the direction of Warden. Kelly jumped without thinking, if Warden was hit it would be over. She wouldn’t let her cousin be consumed the same way she had. Kelly had to force her hand. It hit her square in the chest, a second later and Warden would have been gone. Kelly’s back hit the wall with a painful crack that could have easily broken her back. She groaned when she hit the ground, her vision swimming, she couldn’t let this happen.

XXXXX

Alex yawned, she had managed to take a quick nap in between running operations and discussing tactics with Maggie. She never slept well in her office, the cot being extremely uncomfortable, but for once she had only woken up sore and not tired. She needed a clear head for whatever she was going to face regarding Kelly.

“Director Danvers?” Vasquez lightly knocked on the door to her office. “We just got a report from L-Corp security, they had a breach in one of their northern labs.”

“Was it Kelly?”

“Unknown, but likely,” Vasquez said handing Alex the tablet she was holding. “Eye witness said there were three people, one attacked the other two.”

“Three?” Alex scrolled through the page on the tablet, skimming all the information. “Kara?”

“Unknown.”

Alex handed the tablet back to Vasquez. She already didn’t like the situation, if it was Kelly, and Alex had no doubt that it was, she was moving quickly. If Alex had to guess Kelly was feeling pressure from them and was moving ahead to avoid detection.

“Get a team ready and get Maggie over here,” Alex said. “We’ll investigate see what’s going on. If we’re lucky it will be Kelly.”

“Right away ma’am.”

Once Vasquez left Alex went to her desk and pulled her gun out of the top drawer. Warden would always be a threat, killing her would solve their biggest problem but Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to do it. She holstered the gun and left her office to join Vasquez at the command center.

She wondered why her sister would go after Kelly without talking to her first. Kara hadn’t even wanted to go after Kelly in the first place. She wanted to help, sure, but that only went so far. Unless it wasn’t Kara, in which case they were in more trouble. Alex had no idea how far gone Kelly was and whether or not she would hurt anyone.

“The team will be ready to move in five,” Vasquez said. “Maggie will be here in two.”

“Good,” Alex said. “I’m leaving the DEO in your hands for now. Hopefully we’ll be back soon.”

“Alex!”

Maggie came up behind Alex grabbing her arm to turn around. Alex could see a mixture of excitement and desperation in her wife’s eyes. They had been waiting for over a year for a solid bit of proof of Kelly’s location and now they had it. “Is it her?”

“Looks like it,” Alex said gently removing Maggie’s hand from her arm. Her wife hadn’t meant to but the grip she had on Alex was painful.

“What are we waiting for?”

Alex sighed, one of these days Maggie’s impatience would get them into trouble. She was guilty of it too, which was why she had the majority of scars on her body, but when it came to Kelly and Warden there was no room for mistakes. If Kelly was working with Warden then Kelly had completely lost her mind, they would just have to accept that. Alex wasn’t sure that Maggie could accept that Kelly may not be on their side anymore.

“Nothing,” Alex said. “The teams ready, we’ll get moving.”

“Ma’am’s?” Vasquez said as the two started to leave. They turned to face her. “Good luck.”

They nodded in unison before leaving. Neither of them were ready for whatever they would face at the lab but after a year they were done sitting idly by. It was time someone took action to bring Kelly home, whether it be by her own free will or in cuffs.

XXXXX

Lori watched as light flowed around Kelly, wrapping around her arms and down her body. Her cousin struggled to get to her feet, a small trickle of blood seeping from her mouth. The hit hadn’t been meant for her it was supposed to be for Warden. She couldn’t understand why her cousin was protecting the woman who had almost killed them all.

“I don’t want to hurt you Lori,” Kelly said through clenched teeth. “But I can’t let you stop us. We have to do this, you need to understand that.”

“What is there to understand?” Lori said her voice breaking. “You betrayed us. She tried to kill us Kelly and you’re protecting her?”

“We have a deal, she takes me to Thorul and in return she turns herself in to the DEO,” Kelly said. “Thorul can’t be allowed to roam free, not after what she did.”

Behind Kelly, Warden had gotten the portal device to work. The portal opened shimmering as it wasn’t quite stable. Warden moved towards it, placing herself in between Lori and Kelly but stopping before she entered. Kelly glanced at her nodding slightly.

“I can’t let you go,” Lori said. “The DEO will be here any moment and both of you will be taken into custody.”

She had no idea whether or not the DEO actually knew they were there but Kelly didn’t know she was lying. Lori wasn’t going to let Kelly destroy everything because she wanted revenge. She should have known what this was about.

“Get out of my way Lori,” Kelly said.

“No.”

“We have to go kid come on,” Warden said. “Leave her and let’s go.”

Kelly moved towards Warden with the intent of leaving. Lori moved to intercept, grabbing Kelly’s shirt and lifting her off the ground. Her cousin didn’t struggle even though she could have. Warden moved to help Kelly but stopped, Lori had noticed Warden hadn’t used her powers once during their encounter. Kelly must have placed a dampener on Warden, at least she wasn’t a complete idiot.

“You could come with us,” Kelly offered. “We could use your help.”

“Just leave like you did?” Lori shot at her. “You’re not going anywhere, either of you.”

“Then I’m sorry.”

Lori had no time to figure out what was happening before it was too late. She felt all her strength leave her causing her to lose her hold on Kelly. When Kelly had first attempted to remove the ambient light from around her it had drained her, but this time she didn’t look affected at all. Kelly grabbed her shoulder pulling Lori closer. “I hope you’ll forgive me eventually.” Kelly hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind from her lungs. Lori fell to her knees gasping for air. She reached for her cousin but Kelly was already stepping through the portal leaving Lori alone in the lab.

The portal disappeared seconds before the room was stormed by a dozen or so heavily armored men and women with guns. Lori raised her hands above her head but she was still struggling to catch her breath though she could feel her powers returning to her. One of the guns which was dangerously close to her face was blinding her with its extremely bright flashlight.

“Lori?”

The flashlight moved away from her face revealing Alex behind the gun. Her aunt went to her knee checking Lori over for any injuries. Lori pushed her away she couldn’t understand why they had even bothered to show up when they had come too late. If Lori had managed to distract Kelly just a little bit longer they could have stopped her.

“Search the area,” Alex said to her agents. “Mags you want to talk to her?”

“Yeah, give us a minute?”

Alex nodded leaving Maggie alone with Lori. She noticed that there had been a struggle but not much of one. Alex went over to the wall were part of the concrete was crumbling from some kind of impact. She ran her fingers over the crumbling concrete, Lori must have fought with Kelly. It surprised her there wasn’t more damage with those two fighting they could have easily brought the building down. Kelly probably held back, Alex didn’t think her daughter had it in her to actually hurt Lori, no matter the circumstances.

“Alex,” Maggie came up behind her, her hand lightly grazing Alex back to get her attention. “She’s gone, Lori said she left with Warden just minutes before we arrived.”

“So we have no idea where she’s at,” Alex said with a sigh. “We’ve lost her again.”

“Not exactly,” Maggie said handing Alex her phone. “Lori managed to place a tracker on Kelly. Brainy should be able to find it with a little help from Barry.”

“Let’s get back then,” Alex said. “The longer we wait the more she slips away from us.”

Maggie nodded, they would talk to Lori more back at the DEO. They needed all the details about what happened so they could better prep for the jump. Alex needed to get an itemized list of what was kept in the lab so they could figure out what Kelly might have taken. She would have one of her agents handle that.

“Let me talk to everyone,” Alex sighed. “There isn’t anything for us here but I still want them to go through everything.”

“I’ll take Lori outside,” Maggie said. “She’s pretty upset… I don’t understand what she was doing here.”

“She’s been tracking Kelly,” Alex informed her wife. “The security breach at the DEO was her. I guess Lena didn’t get the chance to talk to her about hacking government servers before she found Kelly.”

“A sixteen year old kid did a better job at finding our daughter than we did.” Alex could tell Maggie was angry, she couldn’t blame her. “We shouldn’t have been waiting Alex. We should have gone after her sooner.”

“I’m not fighting with you Maggie,” Alex said. “Let me do my job, then we’ll go after her.”

Maggie shook her head but didn’t continue. She went to Lori wrapping her arm around her niece’s shoulder, leading her out of the room. Alex stayed behind to brief her agents one what they needed to do. The majority of them didn’t need to be told, they were veterans, they could figure out what she wanted fairly easily. She also took a minute to send the tracking data Lori snagged to Brainy along with a message to have a location for them by the time they returned to the DEO.

Brainy had the display up in front of him. He had extrapolated the needed data only seconds after Alex had called him but he was still, as Alex said, ‘mauling it over’. This was an Earth similar to theirs but the time line differed greatly. It made sense, Ms. Thorul was in her forties where Lillian on their Earth was in her seventies. Had he had the time Brainy would have loved to study it further but unfortunately he never got out of the city very often.

“Alright Brainy what do you have for us?”

He wasn’t great at reading people, it wasn’t something he had ever picked up. But he could tell that there was some tension between Alex and Maggie. He knew better than to ask, the more they fought the less he was interested in understanding human behavior.

“We’ve found Flare on another Earth similar to ours,” he said. “I’ve already calibrated your transport, as soon as you’re ready you may proceed.”

“And here you had your doubts,” Alex remarked. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t go now. We’re armed and we wait any longer we could lose her again.”

“Then let’s go.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lori spoke up for the first time since they arrived back. “You’re going to need me.”

Alex shook her head, she wasn’t about to drag Lori into this. Her niece had already fought with Kelly once, it wasn’t a good sign that Kelly had run.

“Absolutely not.”

“Look I’m coming whether you want me to or not,” Lori said. “There is no way you can stop me, I’ll just follow later.”

Lena could scream at her later, she didn’t have it in her to argue with Lori. She had no idea what Kelly was running into or what they would face, having Lori with them might give them a slight advantage in bringing Kelly home.

“Fine, but what I say goes,” Alex said. “Brainy the device?”

He handed her the small device taking a step back to clear the area when the opened the portal. They disappeared from sight a second later the portal closing behind them. It would be interesting to see how things went. He secretly hoped they would bring Kelly back without Warden. He didn’t like the woman, she was a menace and one last thing they needed on their Earth. If she were to escape, he didn’t believe they would be able to contain her again without heavy casualties. He sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers together. There was only one thing for him to do now and that was to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On an unrelated note I may have started another pet project that may be posted soon, for another one of my favorite shows (Wynonna Earp). I may wait until I finish Homecoming before dedicating more time to it thought because I love my Danvers Family Chronicles.


	6. The Facility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter six, I'm sorry I've been taking so long between updates. I've been struggling with life recently and needed to step back and take some time to myself. Chapters will be slowly getting done, but I'll do my best to get them out every couple weeks. I hope you enjoy this, I'm really excited about getting to the meat of this story. Thank you for your patience, thank you for reading and as always enjoy.

Kelly hit the ground and rolled off to the side to avoid getting landed on by Warden. The portal had opened much higher off the ground than she had expected. Warden was spit out a second later. Her landing was far less smooth thank Kelly’s she flailed her arms and legs only managing to keep her face from impacting the dirt. This was someone who had always had access to her powers and was now powerless. Kelly was actually enjoying watching her struggle.

Once Warden was on her feet Kelly handed her a couple of weapons from her bag. Warden shoved the taser in her pocket but the staff she stared at. She spun it in the palm of her hand before extending it. She had never used a quarter staff to fight before. Her weapon of choice had always been her dual axes. They were both gone having been destroyed in her fight with the Danvers. She wanted them back.

“Why this?”

“I thought it was fitting since you nearly killed me with mine,” Kelly said pulling the chain she had bought over her shoulder. “We need to hurry, they’re going to be following us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My cousin put a tracker on me,” Kelly removed a small device from her belt. She had no idea how Lori had managed it but she was impressed. In the year she had been gone her cousin had grown up a lot.

“They’ll get themselves killed in there,” Warden said. “Hell we’ll probably get killed in there.”

“We’ll have to take that risk,” Kelly said. “Now lead the way, this is your domain not mine.”

Warden started forward mumbling to herself. She wasn’t a leader. Since she was young she had always followed, doing only what others told her to do. Then again she was still following orders, she didn’t like it but the young kinetic was telling her what to do. She noticed Kelly not too far behind her, she didn’t have her usual strength but she knew that Kelly had two vulnerable spots. Both her leg and her side caused her trouble. It would be easy to overpower her and turn her into Thorul. Part of her ached to please the woman who had saved her from the cult but the rational part of her knew that Thorul would never take her back. She wanted the kid, not Warden.

“Something is bothering me about all of this,” Kelly said as they continued towards the facility. “If you and Thorul were so focused on me why set up a base here?”

“Because your Earth meant nothing to us,” Warden said. “It was only you we were after.”

“It’s easier to hide an evil lair in plain sight?”

“Sure,” Warden said, ducking down behind some brush. “This is where it gets difficult, so long as she hasn’t changed the rotation there should be a guard change soon.”

“How can you tell?” They had no idea what time it was, Warden was just guessing at this point.

“The way the guards are acting, when their shift is close to ending they tend to stop doing their jobs.”

“And here I thought you would go in guns blazing,” Kelly said with a shrug.

“Oh we will. Once we get in all bets are off.”

Kelly watched the people moving around the outside walls of the facility. To her the building looked like an old factory repurposed to serve as a base of operations for whatever Thorul had her hands in. clearly her operations were much larger than Kelly had first thought. Whatever she was planning was big, she had already sunk her teeth into this Earth from what Kelly had heard from Warden. She hadn’t won yet, otherwise she wouldn’t be hiding out in a building on the outskirts of town. Kelly wondered if that was why Thorul had come after her. Maybe she would get some answers when they got to her.

Warden shifted next to her. She could tell the kinetic was anxious, her hands were trembling slightly and her entire body was ridged. Kelly had a suspicion Warden was considering betraying her to gain Thorul’s favor. She had already planned for that possibility. Warden was loyal to Thorul, even after being betrayed she still wanted to please the woman who had rescued her. No matter how twisted that woman was. Kelly understood that urge in a twisted way. She would do anything to protect her family, to earn their respect, do anything to prove that she was more Danvers than Donovan. Warden only wanted to prove her place, she had just wound up in a bad place. There was no redemption for her but it didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.

Warden slapped her shoulder, earning her attention. “Come on we need to get inside.” Warden broke from the brush at a sprint leaving Kelly behind struggling to keep up. Kelly slid into the door before Warden could open it. The miss-step earned her a glare from the other kinetic but she shook it off. Together they entered the building, the door barely closed behind them when two guards rounded the corner in front of them. They reacted on instinct grabbing the two guards together. Warden put the one in a chokehold to keep him from alerting anyone else. Kelly whacked the second guard in the back of the neck dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

Warden lifted her guards limp body from the ground, nodding towards a corridor. “I think there is a storage room that way, we’ll shove these guys in there,” she said leading Kelly down the hall. Kelly could hear it in Warden’s voice that she was angry they were going non-lethal. She was a trained killer who enjoyed making people suffer, at least that was what Kelly thought of her. Warden had conflicting personalities that were probably a byproduct of Thorul’s brainwashing.

“How many guard are we going to have to knock out?” Kelly wasn’t sure they could do this all without being detected. The more guards they took out the more of a chance someone would notice.

“Before the alarms go off?” Warden asked with a grin. “About ten, if we’re lucky. We’ll have to fight our way to her no matter what.”

“You’re enjoying this,” Kelly said.

“I enjoyed our fight,” Warden said. “I like a challenge.”

“It wasn’t a challenge you tried to murder my family,” Kelly snapped, she dropped the guard roughly on the floor of the storage room. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

Warden dropped the guard she was carrying on top of the other. “Good, I would hate for you to think we’re friends.” Kelly’s kinetics flared around her fists. If Warden wasn’t careful she would send the woman through the wall. Warden smirked at Kelly’s inability to keep her emotions in check. She was beginning to learn that she could push the young kinetics buttons without crossing a line. Perhaps working with her wouldn’t be so bad after all so long as she could get under Kelly’s skin.

“We should get moving,” Kelly said, “Alex and Maggie will catch up eventually. I don’t think Lori would come on her own.”

“Great, the fucking trifecta,” Warden growled. “They’re going to kill me y’know.”

“As much as I’m considering it I won’t let them,” Kelly said with a sigh. “We had a deal I plan to make good on it. Now where to?”

“Past the cages,” Warden said. “We should move fast, if we get caught Thorul has some very big and angry beasties she let free.”

“I’m starting to wish I had thought this plan through a bit more.”

“I think you nailed it, infiltrate a highly guarded facility with no back up except the woman who tried to kill you,” Warden said checking around a corner. “You’re an idiot, but believe it or not you’re the only person who has ever dared to take Thorul on. I respect that.”

The momentary lapse in Warden’s defenses surprised her but she didn’t think much of it. She was starting to realize this was more of a suicide mission than anything else. Warden had been nothing but forward about their chances and she just kept adding more and more. Maybe she wanted to die, go out in a blaze of glory and take Kelly with her. Wouldn’t be the worst thing, it would mean she wouldn’t have to face her family again. They would probably hate her for running off again. Especially Lori after what happened in the lab. _Lori…_ She had really fucked up there. It was for the best, she would just have to keep telling herself that.

“How do you feel about the dark?” Warden asked out of nowhere.

“Uh its not great for my powers?”

“It will be, I have an idea, but we need to make a quick detour.”

XXXXX

Maggie hit the ground first with Alex and Lori not too far behind her. She hated traveling between Earth’s, she had only done it a couple of times but each time twisted her stomach in the most uncomfortable way. She bent over sure she was about to lose whatever was on her stomach. Instead she felt Alex’s hand on her back, gently rubbing circle while Maggie waited for her stomach to settle.

“I hate that so much,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll stop bringing you along when we have to travel between Earth Prime and whatever,” Alex said taking in their surroundings. “Lori where was the signal coming from?”

“About a mile north west of here, wherever here is,” she said. “Do we have a plan? I mean we don’t even know what kind of resistance we’re going to run into other than Kelly.”

“Well we have you,” Alex said, though she was starting to regret bringing Lori with them. When Lena found out there would be hell to pay.

Maggie had straightened up and had joined the other two. They were going in blind which was typical for them, but with the added issue of Kelly and Warden. Lori had been very clear that Kelly was willingly helping Warden but that Warden seemed to be under Kelly’s control. It was only slightly comforting to know Kelly hadn’t completely deserted them. She had actively avoided them instead of coming to them for help. She had fought with Lori when she could have just waited. Something wasn’t adding up almost as if Warden was leading her blindly until she got her chance to strike.

“No point in standing around,” Maggie said starting off in the direction Lori had said. “Let’s go crash a party.”

XXXXX

Lena wasn’t sure how it was always on the worst possible days that Kara would show up at L-Corp, left her onto her desk and absolutely ravish her. She had a meeting in ten minutes with members of the board to discuss the release of the new L-tech. If Kara didn’t get her hand from between her legs in the next two seconds she wasn’t going to make it to the meeting at all. Her breath hitched when Kara hit _that_ spot.

“You’re going to tell me to leave aren’t you?”

“I’m need to, I have a meeting in-” she gripped Kara’s arm when her wife chose that moment to curl her fingers. “Eight minutes and you are making it so hard for me to want to go.”

“Good, that was the plan,” Kara said with a smirk.

“Kara it’s an important meeting,” Lena argued as Kara’s lips found her neck, she would have marks, she always had marks when Kara did this.

“Which is why your secretary rescheduled it for you.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Kara would do something like that. Lena should have been annoyed that Kara would go above her head, but she really couldn’t. Kara kissed her way down Lena’s neck, taking the time to leave a couple of marks as she went. She should have been mad, she hated walking out of the office with marks that she couldn’t exactly explain away. Kara loved it, she had once admitted she like marking Lena because before would know she belonged to someone. She liked the way the people, mostly men, reacted when they saw the hickey’s on Lena’s skin.

“You know what I like to see?” Lena’s hand found its way to Kara’s neck, squeezing slightly to get the super to look at her. “A Kryptonian on her knees.”

Kara grinned slowly getting to her knees. Lena was a woman that controlled everything and Kara would do whatever it was asked of her if it would make her happy. She ran her hands up Lena’s thighs, bunching up the fabric of her dress. She didn’t stop Kara as her wife nipped at the sensitive skin of her inner thigh working closer to where she wanted to be. Her breath hitches as she felt Kara’s warm breath wash over her…

…Only to be jolted out of the moment by her phone ringing. She picked it up hearing Kara groan into her thigh. They always seemed to get interrupted at the worst possible moment. It was Nia and apparently she had called multiple times Lena just hadn’t heard and Kara had probably ignored it.

“Ignore it,” Kara muttered.

“She’ll just keep calling,” Lena sighed. “Let me see what she wants then we can finish this up.”

Kara removed herself from Lena, propping herself up against the desk. She crossed her arms glaring up at her wife. Sometimes she swore Lena did this on purpose to frustrate her. Lena smiled knowing the more frustrated Kara got the better the outcome would be.

“You have thirty seconds to tell me why you’ve called me eight times Nia,” Lena said when she answered the phone.

Nia had always been interesting to her. It had led to them being very good friends over the years, but sometimes Nia was a bit much. Like at the current moment where she was talking almost too fast for Lena to understand.

“Could you repeat that last part about Brainy and my daughter please?”

Kara sat up at the mention of Lori, she hadn’t been listening in before. She and Lena exchanged glances when Nia repeated what she had said, slower this time. Apparently no one thought to tell them, Lori’s parents, that their daughter had gone off with both her aunts to an unknown Earth to hunt down her cousin and an attempted murderer.

“Thank you for telling me Nia,” Lena said, she had that dangerous tone in her voice she tried her best to hide. “I think Agent Dox deserves a visit.”

She hung up pushing herself off of the desk so she could fix her dress. She could be angry that she would go unsatisfied for an indeterminate amount of time later. Kara was up with her realizing that while they had been busy there they hadn’t even noticed that Lori had been radio silent. They hadn’t even questioned her absence that day. She was sixteen, old enough to do things on her own, but still check in with them. Of course she had been acting erratically for the past year since Kelly left. They should have been paying more attention to Lori. She was hurting and what they hadn’t realized was the lengths she would go to make sure her cousin would come home safe.

“Should I tell Jesse to reschedule your meetings again?” Kara rubbed the back of her neck, almost embarrassed she would have to talk to Jesse again.

“I think she already knows,” Lena said. “Although Mr. Foley and I were supposed to have a late lunch, which will now have to be postponed.”

“Why are you getting lunch with your new head of security?”

“Because he’s my head of security Kara, I have lunch with all my major hires,” Lena said. “Ask Jesse.”

“I’ll pass, I don’t think she likes me.”

“Gee I wonder why,” Lena said with a smile, she liked teasing Kara and at the moment it was the only thing keeping her from going completely off the rails.

“Come on,” Kara said leading Lena to the elevator. “You can decided whether or not I need to throw Brainy into the sun.”

XXXXX

“This is not a quick detour!” Kelly dove through the doorway narrowly avoiding being shot in the back.

“Silent alarm, Thorul must have seen us coming,” Warden said dragging Kelly to her feet. “She upgraded her security. She must have known I would come back.”

“So what do we do?”

Warden paused glancing between the door in front of them and the corridor to their right. They needed to get a vest if they could do that she could cut the power and they could move in the dark. It would give them the advantage for a short while but long enough to get them within reach of Thorul.

“Down the corridor, we’re going to have to fight our way through but we need to get the vest, cut the power and get to Thorul.”

“What vest?”

“The Photokinetic vest I used as a source of my Photokinetic light energy,” Warden said. “You’re going to need it when I make this place dark.”

“Look just because you turn the lights off doesn’t mean I can’t use my powers.”

“It does in this building,” Warden said. “Thorul never guarded from the outside, she guarded herself from her own people. This place is designed to make it impossible for me to turn on her. But she never planned on you.”

Kelly could have argued that. It seemed that everything Thorul did had her in mind. It bothered her just how much Thorul knew about her without actually knowing anything about her. This woman had her hand in her life since the age of three and Kelly hadn’t even known until she sent Warden to kill her aunt. If they made it to Thorul she could get her answers before they took care of her.

“Down!” Kelly shoved Warden down, Kelly could take a bullet or six Warden couldn’t not with the dampener.

Warden yelped at the jolt that went through her when she hit the ground. Kelly stepped over her moving to intercept the team of guards moving in on them. Warden would be no help in a gun fight, it was too dangerous without her powers. Hopefully if Kelly could disarm them as they went Warden could mop up the ones that go back up without getting shot.

Kelly moved faster than they could pull the trigger. The first guard she grabbed his hand twisting so the gun fell just as a second guard pulled the trigger next to her head. She ducted, keeping the one guard in her grasp while she hit the second in the stomach. He bent over in pain not even having the chance to gasp for breath before Kelly hit him in the back of the neck, knocking him out. A third and a forth guard moved in, they had given up on guns, realizing she could dodge out of the way of them. They grabbed her attempting to pull her off the first guard. She slammed her knee into the first guard face, dropping him like a rock. With him gone she backed up as fast as she could, slamming the last two guards into the wall. Their holds faltered but didn’t completely leave.

She stepped on one of the guard’s feet crushing it, causing her to scream in back and fall away. The last guard was more persistent than the others and was actually causing her an issue. The hold he had on her made it hard to maneuver even with her powers he was getting the better of her. At least he was until she screamed and fell to the floor. Kelly whipped around to see Warden holding up the taser Kelly had given her.

“You looked like you were having trouble,” Warden said.

“No more then you’re going to be having,” Kelly said pointing to Warden’s shoulder. “Bullet nicked you, shouldn’t be much of a problem but it will hurt.”

“I’ve had worse,” Warden said. “Impaled and punch into a burning building worse.”

“Not like you didn’t deserve it.”

“The equipment room isn’t far,” Warden said diverting the subject. “Let’s get moving.”

XXXXX

Alex scrambled to get behind cover behind Maggie. They had hit the facility just as an alarm had sounded alerting the guards to their presence. Lori didn’t fit behind their cover so she was just taking shots, they bounced off her raining to the ground. She used her freeze breath to knock the four guards shooting at them down. She really didn’t like being shot at, she didn’t really think anyone in her family really enjoyed it except for Kelly. Her cousin was the only one of them who seemed to have fun in the worst possible situations.

“Should I punch through walls or do you want to go the long way?”

Her aunts glanced at one another. Their plans had always been run in, beat the bad guys and maybe find what they were looking for. They had no idea what the layout of the facility was, they could easily get lost but with Lori’s x-ray vision they might find them without punching through walls.

“No wall punching just yet,” Alex said getting to her feet helping Maggie up in the process. “I think we should just follow the trail of beat up guards. You x-ray vision can keep up moving in the right direction, or even give us some short cuts.”

“You know I’m starting to realize just why I never like any of this,” Lori said with a sigh. “I’ll be so much happier in a lab.”

“We’ll get you back to working on top of the line prosthetics in no time,” Alex said. “Let’s get Kelly back first.”

Lori nodded following closely behind her aunts. They worked like machines, checking every corner before moving forward, occasionally stopping to have Lori look ahead. It was weird for her to see. She had never been much of a part in any DEO operations but with the efficiency that Alex and Maggie moved with made it clear why they were considered the best. Lori couldn’t help but think Kelly would be really good at this, as an agent if she ever got herself together enough to chase her dream.

“There are maybe fifteen of them ahead of us, no way around,” Lori said. “I think I see Kelly and Warden not too far from that.”

“Alright, straight forward approach,” Alex said. “Try not to get shot Mags, I’d hate to stitch you up again.”

“You did that once,” Maggie reminded her. “You’re the one who always needs patching up.”

“You two are weird, can we just get moving?”

Alex took point with Maggie not far behind her. Lori wasn’t sure why she was in the back she was the one who was bullet proof. She highly doubted Ms. Thorul would have Kryptonite infused bullets at the ready. On second thought maybe she would stick to the back and let the people who liked getting shot at stay up front.

“You take left,” Alex said holding up her favorite alien gun. “I’ll take right.”

“I take the stragglers,” Lori said. “Glad to know you’ve already forgotten I’m here.”

They had forgotten she was there, neither of them acknowledged her at they went forward. It was weird for her. The few times she and her mom had worked together on something Kara had always been checking in on her. Her aunts seemed more focused on the fight than making sure she was okay. She wondered if it had been the same with Kelly when she had helped Alex on the occasional DEO raid. Lori had times like that too, when she forgot about everything around her to focus on one thing. It was usually in a lab when she wasn’t being shot at but she knew the feeling.

Alex shot first using the electric bullets her gun had been modified to use years ago. It wouldn’t kill them but it would hurt like hell. The first guard screamed as a jolt of electricity coursed through his body. His body dropping to the ground caused the remaining guards to turn. Unlike the men Thorul had hired to protect her back on Earth Prime these guards were trained, they acted like a well-oiled machine. Taking cover and giving cover fire for each other. If it had been anyone else Alex would have been worried about their chances. But she and Maggie could take down an army together without breaking a sweat.

Lori hung back and watched, she had only seen her aunts in action a handful of times. Even for women of their age they were in great shape. Alex’s movements were fluid, calculated, she was able to disarm two gunmen at the same time knocking them out. Maggie was less calculated, she went were she had an opening but something about it compared to Alex was different. Lori didn’t have to do anything, by the time she moved to knock out one of the guard who was trying to get back up Alex and Maggie had taken out the other fourteen.

“It’s fun when we aren’t getting shot,” Maggie said with the hint of a grin on her lips. “We should do this more often.”

“Why are you two so weird?” Lori was exasperated. They came here to find Kelly and her aunts were treating it almost like a date. “Is this why the last time Kelly took a girl on a date it was for paintball?”

“We met during a murder investigation,” Alex said. “And if it hadn’t been for Maggie getting shot and stitched up by me we probably would have never gotten together.”

“It’s nostalgic,” Maggie said. “But your right, we should be focusing on Kelly.”

“She’s that way,” Lori said pointing down the corridor. “Next time only one of you is coming.”

“Good to know you think there will be a next time,” Alex said. “Maybe we should go before more show up?”

“Good idea.”

XXXXX

Warden handed Kelly one of the vests laying on the metal table. She weighed it in her hands. It probably weighed fifteen pounds, light considering Kelly could bench press a car. She turned it over. Set into the back was a metal plate that housed what looked like one of the DEO’s yellow sun grenades. It wasn’t though, not a grenade but was yellow sun. They had known Warden used a concentrated source of light to power her Photokinetics, her powers were red sun instead of yellow. They must have had multiple prototypes. Her cousin would have found them fascinating.

“This is the same as what you used?” Kelly slid the vest on, rolling her shoulders, trying to get a feel for the added armor.

“Similar, mine was closer to riot gear, bulkier then that, more intimidating but same principle.”

It had nothing on Kelly’s armored suit that had been destroyed during her fight with Warden. The vest wouldn’t maneuver as well and would leave her vulnerable to certain things but if it could power her in Thorul’s power leeching building it was worth the risk. She missed her gear, her aunt had designed it to be light weight but durable. It had made her feel right, this felt off- wrong.

“So now what?” She could already feel her kinesis drawing in more energy from the tiny sun on her back.

“Now we use Thorul’s security system against her,” Warden said moving to a panel on the wall. “I’ll stay behind you, her guards are going to shoot at anything that moves. I’d rather that be you instead of me.”

“Fair enough.”

She didn’t tell Warden but she could hear three heartbeats moving towards them. Her hearing was in no way as good as Lori’s or Kara’s but she could pick up on things here and there. Her parents had come and they had brought Lori. They weren’t far away from them but if they had any hope of taking Thorul out they couldn’t let them catch up.

Kelly nodded to Warden. It was time to go dark, to show Thorul who exactly she had been messing with. Warden punched a few things in to the panel there was a beep then the world around them went dark. Kelly could see Warden’s outline against the wall but she wasn’t focused on her. Light radiated from her only a little at first but soon it was extremely bright. Kelly glanced at Warden. She hadn’t felt this much strength since she first fought Warden. She wasn’t just Kelly Danvers in that moment. She was who she was always meant to be – Flare.


	7. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well THAT took awhile. Sorry for such a long wait between updates life has been...rough this past month. But I'm back hopefully I'll be able to got back to my two weeks between updates but that's up in the air. Still a lot left to do in this story but we're getting to the meat of it now. Thanks for reading and sticking around and as always enjoy.

Roseland had been leading his group of guards to intercept Warden and Flare when the lights went out. Not a single one of them could see. They hadn’t expected the blanket of darkness that had been set upon them. It would have been reckless of Warden to take her powers out of the equation when she knew they would be heavily armed. Thorul had told them Warden wouldn’t attempt something so bold. She had been wrong, Warden was being bold because Warden wasn’t on her own. She had Flare with her, the girl that Thorul was afraid of but would never admit that to them.

They all bunched up, backs together, waiting for whatever type of ambush Warden had planned. Roseland was sure that the two kinetics would charge together, it would be the smartest plan of attack, taking the group from both sides, trapping them, leaving them no room to maneuver. Neither did. It was quiet, still. It was unnerving, not being able to see but knowing there was a threat lurking close by. That was when it first appeared at the end of the corridor, a dull light in the middle of the hall. Then it grew into a super nova, blinding them. Roseland could have sworn the kinetic was grinning. It was only her the light obeyed Roseland realized. Warden stood behind her in the shadows, like death waiting for its next victim. But it wasn’t her who would be the one killing them, she was only pulling the strings. Warden had found her own puppet.

As suddenly as Flare had appeared she vanished, encompassing them in darkness once more. She reappeared a second later much closer than before. Roseland realized Flare was toying with them, trying to scare them. He wasn’t going to be intimidated, she was only a kid and he was a trained mercenary. Roseland raised his rifle as she disappeared from sight again. He didn’t wait for her to reappear, all his men had moved into a semi-circle, waiting for his order.\

“Open fire!”

Six muzzles lit up the surrounding area but not enough to illuminate Flare. Bullets pinged off metal surfaces but none hit their target. They couldn’t track her, not without night vision or infrared. Roseland waved to get his men to spread out, it would be difficult but having them bunched together would make it easier for Flare to take them out. They moved apart spacing themselves out about two feet. It forced a couple of his men to turn their backs but he was sure breaking ranks would help.

“Not quick enough pal.”

Flare was behind him, he spun around accidentally pulling the trigger on his rifle. Bullets tore through the man on his left causing him to scream and fall. Flare grabbed the muzzle bending it until it no longer fired. Roseland caught a glimpse of a smirk right before Flare backhanded him into a wall, knocking him out. The others had less time to respond, the light around her exploded outward, knocking them all back but not off their feet. It moved with her, almost like it was armor, the light closest to her solidified the rest moved independently wrapping around each of the remaining guards. They all had that same look. The look of complete shock, of realization that she had them beat and she had barely broken a sweat. The five remaining guards were all slammed into the walls. They all crumpled to the ground the light disappearing from around them.

Kelly glanced at Warden who was carefully stepping over the guards. She only stopped to kick the one who had given the original order hard in the stomach. Warden would have done it again if Kelly hadn’t grabbed her and pulled her away. She wasn’t at full power but Kelly knew Warden was completely capable of killing the man.

“You’ve given me a dangerous advantage Warden,” Kelly said tightening her grip on Warden’s arm. “I said no killing. I meant it, but I won’t hesitate to end you if you don’t keep in line. Prove to me you aren’t a risk.”

“I’m starting too really like you kid,” Warden gave a predatory grin. “You’re not the weakling I thought you were.”

Two spears formed behind Kelly. She raised her brow in question, reminding Warden that she was the one in charge.

“I could kill you,” Kelly said. “I should kill you. But I’m not going to, not quite yet but if you don’t shut up. My kinesis doesn’t discriminate.”

Warden held up her hands and took a step back. She hadn’t realized it before but now having spent some time with Kelly Warden was learning that the young kinetic was frightening. Kelly had complete control over her kinetic powers now, making the light respond to her without straining herself to much. It had taken Warden years to get to that point, Kelly had achieved it in only a few months.

“Where to?”

“Down the hall there’s a junction that will lead into a large room, we need to cut through there to get to Thorul, it’s going to leave us exposed. Thorul hasn’t brought out the big guns yet. Expect them soon.”

Kelly picked up a rifle turning it over in her hands. She was surprised Warden hadn’t tried to pick one up yet. Kelly wanted this to be non-lethal, she had refrained from severely injuring anyone but they might not make it to Thorul if she didn’t get more aggressive. She held out the rifle for Warden to take. It was a mistake and she knew it but they wouldn’t get anywhere if she pulled her punches.

“You want me to shoot people?”

“I want you not to kill them, but I’m not stupid a taser isn’t going to get us very far, and the staff if only good for close combat.”

“You trust me with this?”

“No but if you shoot me, it won’t matter.”

Warden sighed, she didn’t understand why Kelly was giving her so much leeway. Maybe the young kinetic felt bad for her. Maybe she just didn’t care enough to stop Warden. Maybe Warden had broken her more than she originally thought. She noticed Kelly was limping, something in her prosthetic was making a grinding sound which Warden was sure it wasn’t supposed to do. They would be in serious trouble if Thorul released her alien beast, Warden didn’t think they could handle it even in peak condition.

XXXXX

Alex stared at the computer screen in front of her. It was running on some type of backup power allowing her to search the system for a way to get the locked door open. They had been crossing through some type of lab when it went dark. Maggie had been smart enough to bring a flashlight with her, she was currently scanning the room to see if there was another way out. Alex couldn’t find an override and her override was currently pulling on the steel bar holding the door shut. It was starting to buckle but whatever it was made of was causing the Kryptonian to struggle. Alex was debating where or not to dig into the system to look for information on Thorul and Warden. It wasn’t like they didn’t have time, they couldn’t go after Kelly until after they got the door open.

“Any luck with the door?”

“No,” Alex said rubbing her neck. “Lori how’s it coming?”

“Give me ten more minutes and I’ll have the wall open.”

“Use heat and cold to weaken the integrity of the metal in the door,” Alex said clicking through a file. “You’ll have it open in five.”

Lori muttered something under her breath about how she _knew_ that, she just hadn’t wanted to do it. Alex shook her head Lori was exactly like Kara in that aspect, always being a bit indignant when she missed something obvious. Sometime being a genius was a disadvantage.. Lori went to work alternating between her heat vision and frost breath. Maggie had moved to stand behind her curious as to what Alex was searching for.

“Looking for something specific?” Maggie asked leaning forward until her face was only inches from Alex’s.

“Schematics of the building, any information related to Thorul or Warden, anything useful really.”

“I take it you’re downloading everything in the system?” Maggie asked realizing Alex had one of the DEO hard drives sitting next to her.

“It’ll be done downloading before I even scratch the surface.”

In front of them the metal of the door screeched in protest as Lori managed to punch her way through it. Next to Alex her device pinged alerting her that the download was complete. She would have to read while they went, something had caught her eye as she went through the files that she wanted to look into. She had no idea if it was in any way important to their current mission but it was certainly interesting. She removed the cord taking the device with her, she was going to let Maggie take the lead. She was fairly certain all personnel had been diverted to Kelly leaving them with a fairly straight shot to her and Warden.

“Lori do you know where they’re headed?” Alex was barely paying attention to her surroundings.

“Looks like they’re headed down a corridor that opens into a large room of some kind, and they’re going to be met with a lot of resistance.”

“And us,” Alex said with a hint of a smirk. “Take the next left, we’ll cut around and hopefully make it there before them.”

“What exactly is so interesting Alex?” Maggie slowed her pace enough to look over Alex’s shoulder. Her wife was reading through a file on an Ellen Hope.

Alex gave the device to Maggie taking her spot in the formation. What she had found was troubling and had implications that Alex really didn’t want to think about. If the file she had been reading was true it meant that Warden hadn’t been the first Photokinetic Thorul had recruited and if the pattern continued Kelly wouldn’t be the last (where she to succeed). Her last protégé Ellen had been an enforcer just like Warden but not nearly as brutish. After one wrong run in with the Cult of Rao she killed herself. A couple of weeks later Thorul took Warden in, and file was even worse than Ellen’s, and that troubled Alex.

“That’s one way to go,” Maggie said. “Thorul can’t keep them alive long enough, it had nothing to do with her wanting the best.”

“It get worse,” Alex said. “Check Warden’s file, she had her mind wiped she doesn’t remember who she use to be.”

“A member of the Cult of Rao, daughter of one of its founders,” Maggie said, barely avoiding running into a wall before Alex turned her in the right direction. “Yikes can’t say her situation was great either way. But one did turn her into a psychopathic murderer so there’s that.”

“I think you missed the best part,” Alex said. “Look at her name.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Maggie said.

Lori stopped in her tracks nearly causing her aunts to run into her. “This sounds interesting,” she said pointing up ahead. “Fill me in before we reach the room, Warden and Kelly are stopped not too far from here.”

Alex shook her head taking the device from Maggie, shoving it in her pocket instead. This information wasn’t exactly something she wanted to share with everyone. Lori didn’t know and Kelly under no circumstances could find out exactly who Warden was, even if Warden herself didn’t remember. Maggie shook her head, she couldn’t exactly believe it either, but knowing Warden’s identity did explain a thing or two. It didn’t change anything, Warden was still a monster and they still needed to take her down.

“Not important,” Maggie said. “Let’s get in there and cut down the resistance. I don’t want to fight on two fronts.”

“Maggie’s right,” Alex said. “Come on kiddo, I think it’s about time we end this.”

Alex cracked her knuckles with a grin. She had always been one for a fight, even at her age she could pack a mean punch. Maggie was the same way though she tended to avoid fist fights when she could. Of course Kelly got her love of fighting from her parents, they were so much a like it was amazing they weren’t actually blood related. Lori on the other hand was a lot like her parents, she like to avoid fights when possible. Maybe joining her aunts on a mission had been a mistake.

“Okay,” Lori said rolling her eyes. “I’ll let they two of you do all the punching.”

XXXXX

Kelly froze grabbing Warden by the shoulder to stop her progression. Warden glared at her in annoyance but it faded when she realized Kelly was listening closely to something. She stopped to listen with Kelly but her hearing was nowhere near as good as the other Kinetics. Kelly’s grip tightened on her shoulder, gripping her until it was almost painful. Warden reached up to pry the kids hand off but stopped short when she heard a deep rumble. That had been what Kelly was hearing. Thorul had released the alpha, she was getting desperate.

“Kid we need to move,” Warden warned her. “Now!”

“What is that?” Kelly didn’t budge she was looking around trying to figure out where it was coming from. “It sounds like a mauler. That creature that attacked me, nullified my healing factor.”

“It is and this one is a lot bigger, if we don’t move it’s going to kill both of us now run!”

Warden shoved Kelly forward with an urgency Kelly had never seen in the woman before. They took off at a sprint, Warden barely managing to keep up with Kelly. The kinetic was three times faster than she was even with her powers. Warden knew the kid could have easily left her behind. Kelly was making a conscious decision to slow down enough to allow Warden to keep up with her. It was noble but stupid, instead of getting one of them killed it would get both of them killed.

Behind them the concrete of the walls shattered as the beast set itself upon them. Its body was barely small enough to fit through the small corridor. Warden could feel it closing in on them and smell its rancid breath.

Kelly burst through the door at the end of the corridor right as the beast flung its head forward, slamming Warden into Kelly. They stumbled, Kelly going sailing into the large room. She caught herself, planting her two feet and digging into the tile with her hands. Warden was still on her feet but still in range of the mauler. Kelly threw her hand forward ending out a whip of light that wrapped around Warden’s waist. She was jerked back onto the ground narrowly avoiding being torn apart by the mauler’s massive claws.

“You okay?”

Warden gave her a thumbs up put remained prone, if she stayed flat and didn’t move it would ignore her. She was useless in a fight against the thing, Kelly would have to take care of it on her own. Warden could already see the light wrapping around Kelly, it was strange seeing light move as if it were alive. Kelly’s control of the photokinetic energy was incredible. Warden had never stood a chance against her.

“Kelly!”

Alex saw her daughter come flying through the door only seconds before the largest Mauler she had ever seen tore the wall apart. She watched Kelly pull Warden to safety. She couldn’t help but call out for Kelly, she hadn’t seen her daughter in a year and it hurt. Kelly looked older, she shouldn’t have changed much in a year, but she looked tired, angry so many things that Alex wished she didn’t see.

Kelly turned to see who had called out her name. Her eyes widened with surprise when she saw Alex and the others. Surprise morphed into fear when the Mauler turned its attention to Alex. Kelly didn’t hesitate as soon as the beast opened its maw she was in front of it forcing it jaw open. Its fangs were larger than Kelly’s hands but they made for a good handle. It was pushing against her, slowly making forward progress as she tried to get traction under her boots.

“Warden get the guards!”

Alex watched as Warden got to her feet and made her way over to the guards. They shot at her but she didn’t dodge out of the way. A few bullets impacted her shoulder and chest but didn’t stop her. Warden dove behind some machinery giving her some cover and the opportunity to return fire. It was enough to break Alex out of her trance.

“Maggie with me,” she said moving to join Warden. “Lori help Kel.”

Lori hit the Mauler with her heat vision, giving Kelly enough time to remove herself from the Mauler. They exchanged glances silently communicating how they would take down the Mauler. Lori moved to get its attention, hitting it with a stiff upper cut forcing it to retreat some. Kelly leapt onto its back a light spear forming just over her shoulder. It would take more than just one spear to take the Mauler down but it was a start.

It whipped its head around trying to dislodge the spear. Kelly used her kinetic blades to get purchase on the Mauler’s back. Lori was fighting it on the ground, switching between her heat vision, freeze breath and just hitting the damn thing. As long as she was keeping it occupied Kelly would work on bringing the monster down. Kelly was slightly distracted by the sight of her parents with Warden. They were keeping the guards back and away from the Mauler, giving Lori and Kelly the time they needed to take it down. The problem was that they were still eyeing Warden, the second the gunfire stopped they would turn on her partner. Not only that but Warden would turn on them, she would do whatever it took to get her revenge on Thorul.

The Mauler rose up on its hind legs nearly throwing Kelly off but she held on tightly. Lori wasn’t so lucky, when it came back down she wasn’t ready for it and it latched onto her arm and tossed her like a ragdoll.

“Lori!”

Her cousin hit the wall hard enough to crumble it. She was hurt Kelly could tell she was struggling to get to her feet. She needed to act fast before her parents drew the Mauler’s attention. She and Lori had caused damage but not enough to slow it down.

“Warden the staff!”

Warden turned her back to the decreasing number of guards. She saw the Mauler it was still thrashing trying to get Kelly off her back. Kelly knew Warden would understand her plan and luckily she was right. Warden threw the staff Kelly had given her. Kelly released the Mauler, jumping off of its back to catch the staff. She had learned one thing during her first fight with a Mauler. They liked to bite and she would have to let it try to bite her to hit its weak spot.

The Mauler had turned to Alex and Maggie who had joined Warden in firing at the Mauler having disabled the guards. It wasn’t exactly the perfect situation but she could use it to her advantage.

“Keep up the pressure!”

“Kel what are you planning?” Alex didn’t like going into a plan blind but there was really no time for communication.

Kelly grinned spinning the staff in her hand. “I’m going to get myself eaten.” Before anyone could respond Kelly whistled earning the Mauler’s attention once again. A loud growl formed deep inside its belly in an attempt to scare her. Kelly didn’t budge.

“Come and get me ugly.”

“Kelly you’re insane!”

The Mauler was on her instantly, its jaw opened way bigger than the mauler Kelly had dealt with. It could fit two of her in its mouth and still have room for dessert. She held her position. She only had a second to regret it when it closed its maw around her. Kelly held her breath and extended the staff. The Mauler never bit down its jaw stuck open by the metal staff. She formed another staff out of light in her hand and thrust it up into the roof of the Mauler’s mouth. It howled in pain retreating away from Kelly and the others. Kelly didn’t let it get very far. She launch one last light staff after it, nailing it in the head. It collapsed onto its side, maybe dead but maybe unconscious, Kelly didn’t really care.

“Everyone okay?”

“We’re good, go check you cousin,” Alex said.

“You,” Maggie said pointing at Warden. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t put you down right here.”

“Because I don’t have my powers,” Warden said nonchalantly. “I’m here because of the kid, so relax.”

Warden hasn’t even noticed Alex moving within range until a fist connected with her jaw and sent her to the ground. She could never get use to feeling the pain. With her kinesis it dampened it but never made it completely disappear. Without it everything was enough to bring her to her knees.

“Hey easy,” Kelly was between them in an instant. “That’s enough, until Thorul is dealt with Warden is on our side.”

“This is reckless Kelly even for you,” Maggie said.

“We’ll you really don’t know me anymore do you?” She hadn’t meant to say it but the words left her before she had a chance to stop them. “I’m sorry, let’s just get this over with. Warden fill them in, I’m going to patch Lori up.”

Kelly went over to Lori helping her sit up. Her cousin tried to push her off but Kelly wasn’t about to let her. Lori’s arm was bleeding from her arm but the wounds weren’t deep. They would just hurt for a while.

“I’m glad you came, all three of you,” Kelly admitted as she cleaned the wound. “I haven’t been alright for a while Lori. Maybe I still need someone to look after me.”

“You’re just saying that to make yourself feel better,” Lori said. “You’re a jerk Kelly.”

Lori had expected her cousin to move away, to argue but she didn’t. Instead Kelly chuckled and nodded as she continued to patch up the bite mark.

“I’m a lot of things,” she said. “I’m a jerk yeah, you’re not wrong. But I’m not going to apologize for leaving, I didn’t have a choice.”

She helped her cousin stand but didn’t linger choosing to join Alex and the others. Lori stayed behind watching her cousin walk away. Kelly was different from what she remembered she was a lot colder, more distant. Maybe it was a face she put on to protect herself, either from Warden or from breaking down. Lori couldn’t figure it out but it wasn’t important at the moment, she could figure out what was wrong later.

“Everyone clear on what the plan is?”

“Not exactly,” Maggie said. “How much more does Thorul had to throw at us? What guarantee to we have this won’t turn into a suicide mission.”

Warden crossed her arms glaring at Maggie. She didn’t like the detective. The woman was too cautious, always asking to many questions. Warden could see where Kelly had gotten it from, she was just like the detective and even more like Agent Danvers. It was starting to grate on her.

“I honestly can’t tell you,” Warden snapped. “The alpha was her ace when I was here. She could have added to the collection since then.”

“In other words this is a suicide mission,” Alex said. “No, we don’t have the man power for this.”

“We have plenty,” Kelly said. “You’ve got me and Lori. Warden is just leading the way.”

“Speaking of which we need to talk, now,” Maggie grabbed Kelly’s arm and lead her away from Warden. Alex followed the two leaving Lori to watch over Warden.

Kelly was ready to argue, they needed to continue moving if they hoped to get to Thorul before she ran. She wanted to pull away from her mom tell her she needed to forget about the last year, forget about what was going on with Kelly and focus on the mission. But she didn’t because it hurt. She hadn’t seen or heard from her parents in a year, she had isolated herself on purpose. While she was suffering with her own demons her father had left her with her parents were left to put themselves back together. She knew they blamed themselves, hell they probably blamed each other and that was her doing. It showed too, they looked tired, defeated all because of her.

“What the hell were you thinking Kelly?” Alex was the first to speak. Kelly could hear the pain in her voice even though she tried to hide it.

“Are we talking about almost getting eaten, working with Warden or leaving?”

“All of the above,” Alex said. “You disappeared Kelly, we spent the last year trying to find you. Why did you leave? Why would you leave?”

“It’s not important,” Kelly said, she didn’t want to talk about her father, he was the reason she had gone to the lengths she had. His final words drove her to fix the mess he created.

“Fine Kel,” Maggie said sounding angry. “Don’t tell us, keep us in the dark. But why would you work with Warden?”

Kelly glanced over at Warden who was picking through the forgotten guns on the floor. Lori looked as if she was about to pummel the woman but was refraining from it. Her answer wouldn’t satisfy them. At the beginning she had gone after Warden with the intent of turning her in to the DEO. But when she finally caught her she had realized with Warden she could get Thorul who was arguably more dangerous than Warden. As it had turned out Warden wasn’t what they had originally thought she was, a monster. She was a victim, one that needed to be in prison for attempted murder but still a victim of Thorul’s reign.

“Because she could get me here,” Kelly finally admitted. “She could get me to Thorul, she could get me to the answers I need.”

“What answers could you possibly be looking for?”

“I’ll tell you when I find them,” Kelly said. “Let’s get moving before they have time to regroup. How much farther Warden?”

“Not much, she’s deep in the facility and down a floor, but we’re close,” Warden said. “I think we took care of the majority of her guards, we shouldn’t meet much resistance.”

Kelly glanced between her parents and Lori. She had been right to leave the tracker active, she and Warden would have never made it to Thorul if it hadn’t been for them. However now that they were there they would either try to interfere or completely overtake the mission. She had made a deal with Warden she intended to keep, so far Warden had been more helpful, albeit annoying.

“None of you go near Thorul,” Kelly said with a sternness that surprised her parents. “She’s our problem to deal with.”

“That isn’t-”

Alex held out her arm to stop Maggie, she was sure if Kelly was serious about this Thorul business she would find a way to get them out of the way.

“Of course we’ll follow you,” Alex said.

Kelly nodded and started off. Warden fell into step next to her dropping the gun she had been holding. Lori and Maggie were close behind both staying close to Warden. Alex took up the rear.

Alex had seen the blueprints of the facility while searching through the system. It was massive, it was also a maze so she was in agreement with using Warden to get them through the worst of it. Warden even seemed content on helping them, whatever deal Kelly had made was working but Alex didn’t like being in the dark. She hadn’t seen Warden use her powers once, meaning Kelly had taken precautions, probably realizing she wouldn’t be able to beat Warden with her leg in as bad of shape as it was. She was limping badly.

“Mom come up here for a minute,” Kelly was talking to her.

She moved up sliding in between Kelly and Warden. Warden glanced at her, shrugged and fell back so she was barely in front of Maggie and Lori. Whatever was going on Warden didn’t want any part of it.

“Look I know you’re mad, and I know you don’t understand, but I need you to trust me,” Kelly said barely loud enough for Alex to hear. “I don’t trust Warden she knows that but she has kept up her end of the deal so far, and I plan on keeping mine. Once we have Thorul, Warden is turning herself over to you.”

“Any reason you’re only telling me?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said with a grin. “Mom’s a hothead like me, I don’t think she’ll be able to hold off until we deal with Thorul.”

“Fair enough,” Alex said. “Still, I don’t like keeping her in the dark. It hasn’t exactly been easy with you gone Kel.”

“It’ll get – shit!” Kelly grabbed Alex throwing her to the ground out of the way of something. She didn’t have the time to grab the others before a metal panel slid down the wall separating them.

Kelly slammed into the barrier trying to get it to buckle. It was too thick, even with Lori attacking it from the other side it would take them thirty minutes to put a hole in it. She kicked it with her mechanical foot cursing under her breath.

“We have to find another way around,” she said. “Any ideas?”

“How about a blueprint?” Alex said holding up her device.

“That’ll work,” Kelly said smiling. “Let’s go.”

Maggie had no time to react after she saw Kelly push Alex to the ground. The barricade came down from the ceiling in a flash, impossible for any of them to stop, even Lori hadn’t had enough time to react. She could hear Kelly banging on the other side followed by muffled voices but they soon faded. Warden grumbled to herself behind them something about Thorul and her miserable traps.

“We’ll have to go around,” she said rubbing her neck. “She’s leading us to her, she’s planning something. Come on it’s this way.”

Warden only managed a single step before Maggie grabbed her, slamming her against the wall. Warden held her hands up confused. She understood the hostility, she deserved it, and she expected it. But not here, not in the middle of a heavily guarded facility.

“We’re not going anywhere until I get some answers from you.”

“You’re wasting time detective,” Warden growled. “Your daughter and wife are at risk, they don’t know this facility, I do. Now let me go.”

“No,” Maggie’s words were sharp. “You start talking, what are you planning?”

Warden dropped her hands glaring at Maggie. They were wasting time, Thorul would have time to regroup and whatever she was planning would be a thousand times worse.

“You’re going to get us all killed.”

“Then you better talk fast.”


	8. The Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Intensity is the name of the game and man did it get intense. I waited to update so I could get more of the next chapter done so it isn't as much of a wait for the outcome of events in this chapter. You'll see what I mean. Thanks for sticking around, thanks for reading, and enjoy.

Her Mauler had been defeated, it would die of its injuries in a few hours and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had obtained the alpha when it was young, it had been one of her prize possessions. She had used it to keep the Cult of Rao at bay over the years and now it was gone, along with her right hand woman. She had nothing besides the halfwits she called her guards. She had no other choice. Kelly would be hers come the end of the day, and Warden would be handed back to the Cult of Rao for whatever punishment they saw fit. She pressed the button of her intercom, she was tired of playing defensively. She needed to remind them who they were dealing with.

“Send in Myles and his second, it’s time we made our move.”

“Right away ma’am,” a disembodied voice responded. “The group had been separated, Warden seems to be fighting with one of the members. Is there anything you want us to do?”

“Leave them for now,” Thorul said. “In a few minutes Flare will be under my control and Warden won’t matter anymore.”

Thorul turned to her computer, she opened up one of her programs and began typing. Warden had been smart to use the vest she had once used to herself to help Kelly push through the facility. However Warden hadn’t remembered the vests intended use. It was how she kept Warden so loyal over the years, besides wiping her memory she had used a program she designed to control Warden. She would use it on Kelly, she had hoped it wouldn’t come to it but she had already failed once. She wouldn’t fail again. With a few more clicks of the keyboard she launched the program. Agent Danvers would be in for a major surprise in a couple seconds.

XXXXX

Alex kept in step with Kelly as the two of them made their way through the twisting corridors to reunite with the rest of the group. She knew Kelly was aware she was watching her closely. Kelly’s limping concerned her, if they had one more encounter with any of Thorul’s men it would only take one well-placed shot to knock the prosthetic out from under her. It couldn’t distract them but it would eventually be a problem.

“I know it isn’t the time to talk but I need to know you’ve bene doing okay,” Alex said. “You left so abruptly it was a shock to us all.”

“I know, I didn’t want to but like I said I wouldn’t have been able to leave if I told you directly,” Kelly said. “There’s part of me, this dark part of me that I can feel trying to break free. I know what it is and I know I can keep it at bay but I need to finish this. As soon as Thorul is dealt with it’ll be over. I’ll be okay.”

Kelly didn’t shake her off when Alex reached out to squeeze her shoulder. She had been through hell over the years, starting with Donovan’s abuse, then nearly dying at sixteen then this. The only constant she ever had was her family. They kept her grounded, kept her safe but after the attack that almost killed all of them that safety net was gone. She felt alone even though she wasn’t, it was enough to let the darkness creep forward.

“I did my best to keep Maggie from coming after you but she was adamant.”

“And here I thought it would be you trying to find me,” Kelly said managing a smile.

“No I understood, you needed time not your parents breathing down you neck.”

“I appreciate it – fuck!”

Alex stopped turning to see Kelly grasping at the back of her neck. She went down to one knee clearly in pain from something Alex couldn’t see. Maybe it was her prosthetic finally giving out? No she wouldn’t be holding her neck this was something else. She grabbed Kelly trying to keep her from digging at her neck. That’s when she saw it, a small piece of metal with dozens of little legs had latched itself to Kelly. She didn’t know what it was or what it would do but she knew she had to get it off.

“Get the vest off Kelly!”

Kelly struggled to do so but she managed to get the vest unzipped but as soon and Alex tried to pull it off of her Kelly doubled over. Alex stopped, there was no way to remove the vest without tearing the skin from Kelly’s neck. She took another look at the device, it looked like it ran all the way down Kelly’s back, probably attaching directly to her spine. They couldn’t remove it without putting her under sedation in a hospital. Kelly grabbed her arm pulling Alex down to her level. Alex could see the pain in her eyes, she was doing everything to hold it down but she couldn’t.

“You need to run,” Kelly said through clenched teeth. “Go to the others and get to Thorul. It’s the only way.”

“Only way for what?” Alex asked. “Kelly what is happening?”

“Warden betrayed me,” Kelly said. “She’s in my head. You have to go, now!”

“No.”

“Run!”

She could hear it in her daughter’s voice, something that told her she needed to be afraid and that she needed to run. She couldn’t help Kelly now, her only hope was to get to Maggie and take out Thorul. She took off at a sprint running completely on instinct. She heard on last guttural scream behind her before everything went silent. Alex paused turning to look behind her. She didn’t want to leave her daughter behind but there was nothing she could do. Kelly had told her to go. She knew Kelly was right, she had to trust that Kelly understood what this meant.

Alex started running again. Her focus shifting from Kelly to Maggie and Lori as well as Warden. Kelly had said Warden had betrayed her, which meant Warden had betrayed them she needed to be dealt with as well. Something exploded behind her, light washed over before the shockwave hit her sending her to the floor. She pushed herself to her feet she couldn’t think about what was happening behind her. She had to get to the others.

XXXXX

Her mind wasn’t her own. She was full of rage but it wasn’t completely hers. Kelly tried to get to her feet but the pain was too intense. She fell back to her knees, grabbing her head trying to relieve the pain somehow. She slowly tried crawling down the hallway towards her parents, towards Lori. She didn’t make it very far before she collapsed, the darkness finally taking over her.

When she came to the pain was gone, replaced by something else she couldn’t place her finger on it. She pushed herself up, getting to her feet coming face to face with Thorul. The woman was watching her closely but her face was unreadable. Kelly didn’t attack, something kept her from doing so but part of her didn’t want to.

“How do you feel,” she asked.

Kelly found it hard to form words at first, her mind still not her own but after a minute of struggling she managed to remember. “Different.”

“Do you know what you have to do?”

“Yes,” Kelly said.

“Then go, prove to me you’re loyal.”

Her steps were hesitant but she still went forward, gathering light around her before it exploded outward. She was having trouble maintaining her Photokinesis. It kept sending out shockwaves accidentally. She would need it under control if she wanted even a chance to defeat Alex. The anger was boiling over, a gift from Donovan, the only thing he had given her, his rage.

XXXXX

Warden slumped against the wall, she had no idea what the detective was after, she didn’t remember. Maggie wasn’t taking that as an answer though, and the kid wasn’t doing anything to stop her. It hurt, she wasn’t use to this kind of pain. Thorul’s abuse had always been verbal never physical, she realized it far too late.

“I don’t remember, why don’t you believe me?” Warden was at her breaking point, she had fought people far tougher than the detective, but without her powers she was weak. “I don’t know what she’s planning either. I don’t.”

Maggie let her collapse to the floor in frustration. They weren’t getting anywhere and the longer they stayed stationary the worse it would be for them. What they needed was to find Alex and Kelly and get the hell out of there. They could interrogate Warden then go after Thorul, there was no way they would beat her not like this. She glanced at Lori, her niece was keeping her composure but Maggie could tell she was getting nervous. She wasn’t exactly cut out of this kind of thing. Maggie almost felt bad for allowing her to tag along, but she had been angry at Kelly. She wanted answers like the rest of them did and she had been the only one able to track down Kelly.

“Get up, we have to find the others,” Maggie said.

Warden glared at her but did as she was told, stopping only to wipe the blood from her face. She had been saying that the entire time. She didn’t like Kelly but at least she listened to her unlike Maggie. She had half a mind to punch the detective but held herself back. She didn’t want to give her a reason to retaliate.

“Head straight down the hall, there’s a junction it’ll lead us back to them,” Warden said. “She’s leading us so it’s probably a trap.”

The words had barely left her when Agent Danvers came sprinting down the same hall they were about to take. She stopped them in their tracks waving at them to back up and go another way. Warden noticed one thing; Kelly wasn’t with her. Thorul had done it. She had won…but how?

“Alex where’s Kelly?” Maggie basically caught Alex before her wife went straight into a wall. “Alex?”

“I need you to trust me okay?” Alex said sounding out of breath. “Kelly…fuck…she’s not…goddamnit… Thorul has Kelly.”

“What?”

Alex turned and the rest followed her gaze. At the end of the corridor was Kelly, surrounded by light. Alex pulled her gun just as Kelly disappeared from sight repeatedly pulling the trigger. Shots pinged off of small echoes of light bouncing to the floor. Maggie grabbed Alex’s arm causing Alex to shoot the ceiling above her.

“Alex what the hell!”

“Just trust me,” Alex shouted.

Kelly appeared again, this time much closer. Alex had no time to fire off another shot before Kelly grabbed her hand and punched her in the stomach. The gun fell to the floor out of reach. Kelly slammed Alex into Maggie causing the two to hit the floor hard. She turned towards Warden moving so fast she was only a blur. Warden had no room to maneuver, finding herself with her back against the wall. Kelly showed no restraint, she knocked Warden back, sending the older woman off balance. A blade formed around Kelly’s fist, this one much smaller than her others. Warden had no way to stop it as it punctured her abdomen. She went down like a rock sobbing in pain. Kelly stood over her, watching, debating on whether or not to deliver another blow. She raised her bladed fist bringing it down, but she stopped short only centimeters from Warden’s face.

“That’s enough Flare, she’ll be coming with us,” a man said from somewhere behind Warden.

Warden glanced back but didn’t dare move more. She didn’t know the man, he did look familiar, a face from her past maybe. Thorul had taken it all away, to help her more easily become Warden. It was the same process that Kelly was currently experiencing. Still, the man’s presence sent a chill down her spine. She did recognize the insignia tattooed on his bare forearm, he was a member of the Cult of Rao.

Kelly glanced to her side, seeking the conformation from Thorul. Warden glared at the woman. She was wearing a white suit, one she wore quite often, it was pristine. Warden wanted it to be stained with red. Thorul nodded to Kelly but made too effort to look at Warden. The second she got a chance, Thorul would pay, her deal was off she done playing nice. Kelly stepped off of Warden, turning her attention to the Kryptonian who stood shocked a few feet away. She couldn’t understand what was happening, Warden almost felt sorry for her.

“Get up Rachel, you’ll be coming with us,” the man said. “We’ll patch you up at home.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Warden said through clenched teeth. “And who the fuck is Rachel?”

Kelly cocked her head at Lori, she couldn’t figure out why the girl hadn’t moved. She saw that Lori was trembling, unable to move. Not worth her time, she would focus on the real threat; Alex and Maggie. The two had gotten back to their feet, Alex was ready to fight but Maggie seemed hesitant. She would take her out first, then deal with Alex. No sooner had she taken a step forward did she feel Lori’s heat vision on her back. It stung but that was all, no more than a nuisance. She turned, she would have to take them all on at the same time. She was confident she could. Kelly pulled out her staff, it was still covered in the Mauler’s blood but still intact.

Lori and Alex attacked together, Lori required more attention being able to move as fast as she did but that didn’t make Alex any less of a threat. Kelly managed to dodge the majority of Lori’s punches but with each one she dodged Alex would hit her from behind. Kelly ducked under one of Alex’s right hooks. The blow intended for her hit Lori instead. The Kryptonian didn’t budge but Alex double over in pain as her hand broke. Kelly took the opportunity to bring the staff up into Lori’s jaw, seconds before impact Kelly drew the ambient light from Lori, making her powerless.

The staff hit her jaw knocking her off her feet. Kelly didn’t stop there, she jumped up slamming the heel of her foot into Lori’s stomach. Lori gasped for breath as the wind was knocked out of her. She had no time to recover, the last blow from Kelly was a kick to the ribs, she felt the bones snap before she was flung into the wall.

“Maggie come on I need you!” Alex shouted breaking Maggie from her trance. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I’m right behind you,” Maggie said. “Alex what the hell are we supposed to do?”

“Get through to Thorul.”

In theory it should have been easy but Kelly was directly in the way. To make it worse both Alex and Maggie had trained her from a young age. They knew all her moves but she knew all of theirs. Not to mention with her kinesis being under Throul’s control Kelly wouldn’t hold back, she would kill them and have no control over it.

Kelly clapped her hands together the light sparking around them. Alex and Maggie shared glances. They really weren’t ready for this. Truth be told they were both getting to old for this kind of combat, both of them nearing their fifties. Alex was already fighting with a broken hand. They were at a disadvantage and Kelly knew it.

“You take left, I take right?” Alex suggested.

“You’ve had worse ideas,” Maggie said. “Try not to hurt her too much, she will eventually break out of this haze.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about hurting her,” Alex said. “Worry more about her hurting us.”

Kelly took a swing at Maggie but her mom saw it coming, ducking under her fist. Kelly’s fist connected with the wall damaging it, she pulled her hand from the concrete turning to glare at the two women facing her. Alex was cradling her broken hand close to her, shielding it from Kelly. Her other hand was raised in a defensive posture, waiting to see what Kelly would do. Maggie on the other hand had squared up to Kelly, she wouldn’t make the first move but she would quickly retaliate. Kelly smirked, raising her hand waving at them with a come get me gesture. She was going to enjoy this.

Warden struggled against the two men attempting to drag her away from the others. She knew the cult, she knew what they did to deserters. She was the worst of them, having killed their so-called God. After everything Thorul had chosen to hurt her one last time, handing her over to the Cult, to Myles? It was a worse betrayal than Thorul leaving her for dead. The two men dragging her, large brutish looking men, held her arms in a vice grip. With the wound in her side and the dampener on her back she had no chance. They had lost, Kelly had been turned somehow, some kind of mind control the others would be dead in a matter of minutes. And her? She had no idea but it wasn’t going to be fun.

“What did Lillian do to you Rachel?” Myles was still talking as they went, he ignored the fight behind him. “Turned you into a brute, no morals, no God. Shame you would have made a great leader had you not been taken from us.”

“Fuck you,” Warden growled she really didn’t like being called Rachel, it wasn’t her name. “Tell these assholes to let me go and I’ll show you just how much of a brute I am.”

“Settle down.”

“Bite me.”

Myles hit her, the back of his hand across her face. It hurt but it was nothing compared to the burning in her side. She grinned unable to keep from laughing. Did he really think that would change the way she acted? Thorul had been absolutely brutal to her since the day the woman had taken her in. Pushing her to the absolute brink, she survived, and was stronger because of it. Someone like Myles wouldn’t easily beat her.

“Keep at it,” Warden taunted. “As soon as the kid come to her senses I will tear all of you apart. Piece by fucking piece until there is nothing left.”

She remembered something from a long time ago, how you should never bite your attacker. They could have any number of diseases which could be passed on through contaminated blood. Warden didn’t care. She wanted blood. She turned her head biting down hard on one of her captors arms. He screamed in pain releasing his hold on Warden which caused the second man to drop her. She jumped up grabbing Myles by the throat, slamming him into the wall.

“Let me go Rachel,” he said calmly through clenched teeth.

“That. Isn’t. My. Name.”

Maggie saw it again, the twitch in Kelly’s hand right before it connected with her chest. Her daughter was in there, somewhere, but she couldn’t break free, not yet. She was sure Alex had picked up on the twitch too. Every time Kelly was about to throw a punch her hand would twitch, causing the blow to be less painful. She was in control enough to keep from seriously hurting either of them, which meant if they could break through they could pull Kelly out of the trance she was in.

Alex grabbed Kelly’s arm bringing it down into her knee. Under normal circumstances it would have been enough to break the arm. With Kelly all it did was pull her off balance. Maggie slammed the heel of her foot into Kelly’s stomach. Kelly hit the ground with a thud. It was then Alex and Maggie realized their mistake. Light extended from Kelly’s arms under their legs, she pulled down pulling their feet out from under them. The fraction of a second they were still in the air she was on her feet, slamming two closed fists into their stomachs. That was it, they couldn’t beat her, not in this state, not without Lori. Hell not without Warden.

Maggie was trying to get to her feet when a swift kick hit her in the ribs. She saw that twitch again but it hadn’t been enough to stop Kelly’s blow from cracking several of her ribs. She went down, unable to push herself up again. She reached out for Alex her hand dropped, weak, tired.

Kelly’s attention turned to Alex. The director was struggling to her feet but failing. Kelly grabbed the back of her shirt, lifting her up off the floor. Alex was panting, out of breath and in pain. All her strength had left her she didn’t think she would stand a chance against Kelly one on one.

“You’ve lost,” Kelly said, her voice hallow, not her own.

“Kel come on you’ve got to fight this,” Alex said. “I know you’re in there. Fight her kiddo, please.”

There was the twitch again in her hand it was slight but there. Kelly slammed Alex face first into the wall, it hurt but it was tolerable. Alex knew Kelly didn’t want to hurt her, but couldn’t control her actions. She could see it in her daughter’s eyes, the internal conflict she was dealing with.

“Your daughter is gone Director Danvers,” Thorul said from her spot not too far from Kelly. “She belongs to me now. She won’t listen believe me. How do you think I kept control of Warden for so long?”

Kelly threw Alex into the wall, moving to join Thorul. Alex could see it, the similarities to Warden, her stiff movements, her commanding presence, it was all there. She should have known the Thorul kept an iron hold on Warden, even after the woman had been brainwashed to follow her orders. It didn’t change that Warden was their enemy but it wasn’t completely her fault that she did what she did. If Kelly could barely fight Thorul’s control how could Warden ever defy her?

“My daughter is stronger than you give her credit for,” Alex said through clenched teeth. “She’ll break free, you can’t control her. You hear the Kel? I know you’re stronger than her. You’re stronger than all of us, fight it!”

Thorul sighed. _So be it,_ she thought. “Well if they don’t want to believe you’ve truly given yourself to me, how about we give them a demonstration?” Thorul waved her hand. Three of her men stepped forward from somewhere behind her. They moved towards the tree women, dragging Alex, Maggie and Lori to their knees. Each had a pair of plastic zip-cuffs, binding their hands behind their backs. Alex winced as the plastic dug at her broken arm.

Thorul handed her pistol to Kelly, who took it, holding it loosely in her hand. Again Thorul sighed, Kelly was fighting her control but not enough for it to make a difference. She squeezed Kelly’s hand forcing the girl to grip the gun tighter. Once she was satisfied Kelly wouldn’t drop the weapon she moved to stand behind Alex. Thorul smiled, gripping Alex’s shoulders tightly. After over a year of regrouping, and sixteen years of planning she had finally won. She had what she wanted, all she had to do was put the final nail in the coffin.

“Who will it be Kelly?” Thorul asked leaning down so she was closer to Alex. “Alex, your mother, the woman who raised you as her own? Who taught you everything she knowns? Who loves you unconditionally and would go to the depths of Hell to protect you?”

Thorul moved to Maggie running her hand across the Detective’s back. “Or Maggie? The woman you look up to most? Your role model and best friend? The first person you truly felt comfortable with after your father hurt you? The one parental figure you felt you could trust with everything?”

She shoved Maggie forward then, almost knocking her to the floor. Maggie barely stopped herself from hitting her face on the ground, looking back to glare at Thorul. The woman’s smile only grew. She paid little attention to Maggie as she tried to get back up choosing to move behind Lori. Kelly’s absent gaze shifted as Thorul moved, fixated on where Thorul went. Thorul ran her hand through Lori’s hair. The motion made Kelly’s hand twitch again. It was very subtle but Lori, who definitely had a concussion, couldn’t help but notice the small movement.

“Or will it be your cousin? The girl who idolizes you, who respects you? And who you’ve looked after and protect since you were a child?” Thorul met Kelly’s eye, giving her a stern look. “Choose, and choose quickly or I will kill all three of them.”

Lori closed her eyes as her cousin lifted the gun towards her. She wasn’t going to break free, not this time. This would be it, Kelly would never be able to recover from this.

Kelly aimed the gun. She looked Lori over, one last time, her finger on the trigger. Her hand twitched. She pulled the trigger.

Warden was momentarily distracted by a gunshot ringing out. She turned but couldn’t see who had been hit. Myles took advantage of her distraction jabbing his fist into the wound in her side. She grunted losing her grip on his throat. He hit her again, leaving no room for her to breathe. Warden wasn’t used to losing, she had always won up until she lost to Kelly. It made no sense to her, how a man who was by all accounts insane, could so easily take her down.

“You are coming home with me Rachel,” he said kicking her again. “That was Thorul’s promise to me, you belong to us. You always have. Stop fighting it.”

“Kid! I need you!”

Myles hit her again. Her vision was swimming, she was having trouble focusing on the man above her. She dropped her hands to her sides, unable to find it in her to fight back. It was a stupid way to go out. She wished Lori had killed her that night, the girl had punched her into a burning building. It should have killed her but she had been too stubborn to die. Now she wished that stubbornness had never existed. The Cult of Rao. What an absolute joke. Yet they had won. Thorul, the cult they had won…


	9. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was going to be way longer but I decided to split it into two chapter since so much happens. Didn't want to over do it. So hopefully 4k is enough for the time being. Thanks for reading and as always enjoy.

Lena was…annoyed to put it mildly. It would be more accurate to say she was annoyed, angry and worried. Brainy had filled them in on what exactly had happened when Alex and Maggie left. They hadn’t wanted to take Lori but Lori wasn’t letting them leave otherwise. She shouldn’t have been surprised, Lori was headstrong when she was focused on something she would stop at nothing to see it through. That didn’t mean that Alex and Maggie were off the hook, Lena planned on making their lives a living hell. Lori wasn't like them she didn’t like to fight, she wasn’t a fighter.

“You could send Kara?” Lena suggested. “Maybe they need back up.”

“Doubtful, Director Danvers is extremely capable,” Brainy said, turning in his chair. “In any case they have the only device. It would take time for me to make another.”

“Then make one,” Lena’s tone turned dangerous. “It doesn’t take a genius.”

“Okay…” Kara muttered.

Kara moved behind Lena pulling her wife away from Brainy. She didn’t want them fighting while they waited for one of the portals to open up. If they were distracted they might miss the others returning. They had no idea what was happening on this other Earth at Thorul’s stronghold. They had no idea what Kelly’s mindset was, what Thorul had up her sleeve, what Warden’s true intentions were. It was best that they all waited, twiddling their thumbs until the alarm went off. Both Alpha and Bravo squads were sitting ready to move in the second they got the alert.

“You sit here, he’ll sit there and you two won’t interact with one another, sound good?” Kara said lifting Lena into a chair. “Stay.”

“Kara.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever do that again,” Lena said. “I will hurt you.”

Lena wasn’t joking, she had that death stare going and Kara knew better than to push her. She jumped up on the table in the middle of the command center. She hated waiting just as much as her wife did but she was better at keeping it internalized. It was strange to her, Lena had once been a master at boxing up her feelings and insecurities and hiding them from everyone. Now she didn’t internalize much anymore. When she did she was usually very angry.

“Should we have a medical team standing by?”

“We already do,” J’onn said as he came into the room. “This is a large operation, figured you could use some help. So where are our girls?”

XXXXX

Lori initially thought Kelly had shot her. She hadn’t felt anything but she knew shock and adrenaline could do things like that. It wasn’t until she opened her eyes and heard a shocked gasp from behind her that she realized what had happened. Kelly had shot Thorul. She had gained enough control to fight back. Lori looked back to Kelly, her hand was still trembling around the gun. Kelly was struggling to raise the gun and to turn it on herself. Next to her Alex screamed Kelly’s name, but she was unable to move.

Kelly glared towards Thorul, Lori had never seen her cousin so angry before. Through gritted teeth Kelly manage five words. “I. Will. Not. Be. Controlled!” She pulled the trigger, the mechanism on the back of her neck exploded into hundreds of shards finally releasing her from Thorul’s control. Kelly glanced at Lori, a guilt ridden expression passing over her. She shook it off moving to stop Thorul before she hit the ground.

“I’m getting real tired of you hurting my family,” she said.

“But I didn’t do this,” Thorul said. “You did, you are the monster that did this.”

“I know what I did,” Kelly said. “But I’m still going to make you pay.”

A rope of light extended out from her arm, all the way down the corridor. The man standing over Warden was ripped from his feet. Kelly dropped Thorul turning to move to Warden. The woman was in bad shape, bleeding from her nose and mouth, unable to focus. Kelly pulled her into a sitting position. Warden swayed, unable to keep herself up on her own. Kelly sighed and knelt down next to her. She was sure she would regret what she was about to do later but right now she wanted some revenge. Pulling down the back of Warden’s shirt she removed the dampener. The switch was instant. One second Warden was drooling blood the next she was focused and very angry.

“I’ve always hated that white suit of hers,” Warden said rising to her feet. “I want to add a bit more red.”

“Take care of the others first,” Kelly said. “Any means necessary. I need some answers from her first, then you can do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want huh?” Warden grinned. “Whatever you say boss.”

Kelly opened her mouth to argue but was stopped by a man’s hand on her shoulder. He forced her to turn around punching her in the face. Kelly shook her head slightly annoyed. She grabbed the man walking him back into the wall. It was a surprise when she realized she was staring into her father’s face. Or a variation of it. The man in front of her looked younger, less like a drunk than her father did. It was weird but then again everything these days was weird.

“I have so many questions, but I have a feeling I won’t get any answers,” she said. “I already killed you once, it’ll be good to kill you again. He’s yours Warden.”

“Good,” Warden said taking Kelly’s spot by Myles. “So, what’s my name?”

Kelly left Warden to bloody her hands, she didn’t like the idea of letting Warden kill but under the circumstances she would let it go. Thorul had gone too far pitting her against her family, nearly driving her to kill them. She went over to her parents and cousin, snapping the restraints on each of them. They weren’t in great shape, all of them with injuries she had caused. Kelly clenched her fists, turning to where she had left Thorul. At some point the woman had moved. She probably hadn’t gotten very far, it wouldn’t be hard to find her especially since she was leaving a blood trail. Kelly followed her drawing as much light in as possible. Thorul had wanted her to become someone to be feared, what Thorul didn’t realize was that she already was.

When Thorul glanced behind her to see if she was being followed Kelly blinked out of existence, using the absence of light to cloak her presence to allow her to move closer without being seen. Thorul sped up as much as her wounded shoulder would allow. She could feel Kelly following her, playing with her. She had made a mistake she had underestimated Kelly. The control she’d had on Warden had been absolute for the longest time. That was until she pushed Warden to murder, then that control began to fade. With Kelly she hadn’t even begun to control her. She followed orders, her personality had shifted like it was supposed to but a part of her had continued to fight. It had been enough to break free from Thorul’s control. She should have realized that Kelly was a different game then Warden was. She hadn’t been eager to please the woman who saved her, she had wanted to hurt the woman who hurt her.

“You can’t run from me,” Kelly said, sounding like she was standing directly behind Thorul, but when she turned around no one was there. “Over here.”

Thorul whipped around finally finding Kelly standing not far away. She had never seen it up close before, the sparking of light around her hands. It was a show of control and of power. She had seen similar things from Warden though Warden made a bigger show of it.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No, but I can’t speak for Warden,” Kelly said pushing off the wall. “I have questions and you have answers. Give me what I need and maybe I’ll talk Warden out of snapping you neck.”

“You’re not a killer.”

“I’m a lot of things I never thought I would be,” Kelly said. “I don’t want to be a killer, but you’ve forced my hand. You hurt my family, you made me hurt my family. I could never in good conscious let you live.”

“Then get it over with,” Thorul said defeated. “What do you want to know?”

Alex thought that she might have to fight the three guards around them. They were distracted, not knowing if they should follow Thorul or help with Warden or stay with them. She was still weak from the beating she took she didn’t know if she could take all three. Alex got to her feet, swaying slightly off balance. None of the guards had the chance to move, the one farthest to the left was suddenly hit with the limp body of another person. Warden moved in, surrounded by red. She was grinning, clearly enjoying the fight she was currently in.

“You’re wounded, take care of you and yours I’ll handle them,” Warden said to her.

“Why are you still helping us?” Alex snapped. “You already betrayed us. Why keep the game going?”

“I didn’t betray you,” Warden said. “I didn’t know. It doesn’t matter once we handle this you can do what you want with me.”

Alex stared her down, she knew Warden was right, she needed to tend to Maggie and Lori. They were worse off than her but she didn’t like the idea of Warden guarding them. Without Kelly to keep Warden at bay the woman could do whatever she wanted. It hurt, knowing her daughter was more interested in revenge than helping them escape. On some level she knew Kelly was still fighting herself on some level. The Kelly they had raised had finally broken, she’d had a hand in the murder of multiple people. She wasn’t hesitating any longer, Kelly was ruthless. Alex should have seen it sooner, she herself had been ruthless and coldblooded once. It had taken Maggie to break her of who she once was. She had no idea what it would take to fix their daughter.

“Go,” Alex said. “I’m not going to stop you…I can’t.”

Warden nodded, turning her attention back to Myles. He was crawling towards them, he was in bad shape from Warden’s beating. She hadn’t killed him, she had been wanting to savor it, kill him and Thorul together. But she didn’t want to wait, the kid was still screwing with Thorul. Finally getting her answers maybe?

“You can’t do this to me,” he said spitting blood. “I raised you, I never gave up on you.”

Warden grabbed the collar of his shirt, dragging him to his feet. Alex watched the two partially in disgust. She was seeing his face again, the same face she remembered from the day she found Kelly, only this time it was battered and broken instead of drunk. She had watched Kelly’s father die, she remembered the axe buried in his chest and the surprise on his face that his own daughter had used him as a meat shield. This Myles wasn’t the fighter theirs had been, clearly, but he was the same manipulative bastard on every Earth.

“You didn’t raise me,” Warden said. “No one raised me, both you and Thorul tried molding me into what you thought was a perfect individual. Both of you were wrong, and now you will both pay.”

Alex was uninterested in finding out how Warden was going to get her revenge. She needed to focus on Maggie and Lori and herself. Alex went to Lori first, her niece should have been healing by now but she was. Alex pressed on her ribs finding that they were still broken. She had no idea what could be causing it, Kelly wouldn’t have been the source. It could have been a building causing a delay in her powers returning. The trauma could have blown out her powers, she would need the yellow sun lights back at the DEO to heal.

“How are you feeling Maggie?” Alex moved so she was kneeling in front of her wife.

“Like I was just run over,” she said forcing a smile. “She broke my ribs.”

Alex carefully lifted Maggie’s shirt up to look at her side. It had already begun to bruise, the skin turning purple in color. Alex ran her fingers over the bruised skin causing Maggie to wince. Maggie had broken her ribs before, a couple time before actually, she knew how to deal with them but Alex was worried about a rib puncturing her lung. She had no way to help her if something were to happen and with her broken hand…she was useless.

“I think your nose is broken,” Maggie said reaching up to turn Alex’s face towards her. “Do you want me to set it?”

“Go ahead.”

They had set each-others bones before, they spent more time patching each other up than they spent eating together. Maggie did it fast so Alex couldn’t tense up it hurt so much Alex wanted to punch the wall.

“How’s Lori?”

“Not great, we need to get her home.”

“Should we leave without Kelly?”

“You two can go,” Alex said, she didn’t like the idea of leaving Kelly. “I’ll stay behind.”

“So we’ll all stay then,” Maggie said. “I can’t carry her and I don’t think she’s up for walking.”

“I don’t know how you two handle this,” Lori said her head rolling to the side. “It hurts…”

Alex moved back over to her niece. She had thought Lori had passed out but it appeared that she was slipping in and out of consciousness. Alex checked Lori’s pupils making sure they were equal and reactive. She didn’t have a good light to use but Lori couldn’t follow her finger when she held it up. She definitely had a concussion, which again worried her that Lori was suffering from these injuries. Kelly draining the ambient light from Lori must have blown out her powers when the light returned.

“Stay still, alright?” Alex said, carefully helping Lori to sit back against the wall. “We need to get Kelly and get out of here, I think Lori blew her powers.”

“Go, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Alex struggled to her feet. She cradled her hand close to her trying her best to keep it from twitching closed. She had never once broken her hand, other bones yes multiple times. Her hand was a first, she hated it, she found it was hard not to move any of the joints. Every time her hand twitched it sent a hot wave of pain up her arm.

Kelly and Thorul had disappeared further down the corridor, Alex could no longer see them from her place. She knew what Kelly was doing, it was a tactic she had used on several suspects. On many raids she would take one suspect and separate them from the others, they would have no one to look to for help, just her and them. Alone she could toe the line of legal interrogation tactics and torture. Kelly knew all of the tactics trained to DEO agents, she wasn’t one officially but she had always wanted to be one, so she studied and learned from Alex and other top agents. She had never thought Kelly would actually employ them in the field, they were things Alex had tried in recent years to train her agents not to do.

She started down the hall she had last seen her daughter move down. They could be anywhere but she thought Kelly would stay close in case something were to happen. She would have been lying to herself if she told herself she wasn’t concerned about what she would find. She didn’t think Kelly would be as reserved about killing Thorul now that she had broken. Alex wasn’t far above it herself, but unlike Kelly, Alex already had a long of blood on her hands…

Thorul had never felt afraid in her life. When she had been a child she never feared a monster under her bed or in her closet. As an adult she never feared failure, or serious injury. She stood tall amongst those who feared the Kryptonians who patrolled their Earth. She never feared the Cult of Rao or her protégée who she all but raised to be a killer. But in that very moment she was afraid. Afraid of what would happen to her, of what Kelly would do to her…of what Kelly would let Warden to do.

Kelly was a force of raw power, something Thorul had never seen in Warden. It was the reason she had chosen to approach Miles Donovan about his daughter. She knew what Kelly would be one day. She had control over her kinesis that Warden could never dream of, she would only get stronger the older she got. Even now she was dangerous, the light around her acted on its own but it was completely under her control. It was terrifying because it wasn’t under her control. She couldn’t save herself from this, for the first time in her life, Thorul had lost. Before, at the warehouse when she turned on Warden, had only been a setback. But this? There was no coming back from.

“You have one chance to give me what I want before I give you to Warden,” Kelly threatened. “You so much as think about fucking with me I will make you wish Warden was the only one you had to fear.”

“Whatever you want,” Thorul said her voice shaking.

“Good,” Kelly said her lip curling back in a smile that sent a shiver down Thorul’s spine. “I recently learned my mother is alive. I need her name.”

“That’s what you want?” Thorul couldn’t hold back her disbelief. “She left you with your father, everything since then could be blamed on her.”

“Her name, Thorul, now.”

“Hannah Donovan.”

Kelly shook her head, slamming her fist into the wall mere inches from Thorul’s head. The cement crumbled around the area. Thorul could only imagine what it would have done if Kelly had actually hit her.

“I know that,” Kelly growled. “Give me her actual name.”

“Okay okay!” Thorul was worried that Kelly wouldn’t contain her anger long enough for Thorul to figure out an escape plan. “Addison! Her name is Addison Wolford…I-I think.”

She appeared satisfied with the answer even though Thorul wasn’t positive if the name was right. She had learned through Donovan that his second wife was still alive but he had never found her. During their time together Thorul had tracked her down but Donovan had died before she could give him the information. She couldn’t understand why Kelly was so interested in finding her mother, she hadn’t cared to look for the longest time. Thorul had learned Kelly never looked, she had just accepted that her mother was gone. Why wouldn’t she have? She had Alex and Maggie she didn’t need her birth mother. Addison was just another woman who abandoned her.

“Kelly!”

Both turned to see Alex making her way towards them. Thorul smirked seeing the injured woman. Kelly tightened her grip on her shoulder shoving her farther into the wall.

“We need to get out of here,” Alex said. “Lori blew out her powers, she’s hurt, she needs medical attention.”

“Give me a minute.”

“Kelly…”

Kelly had already turned her attention back to Thorul. She leaned in keeping her voice low so Alex couldn’t hear. There was one last thing she needed the answer to. “Tell me who Warden really is.” Thorul turned her head in shock, out of everything she could have asked she wanted to know about Warden?

“You already know.”

“Kelly now.”

She pulled Thorul away from the wall shoving her towards Alex. “Let’s go.” She was angry and she wasn’t going to hide it. Alex took the front with Thorul behind her and Kelly taking up the rear. Kelly had promised Warden Thorul and she was going to deliver. When they reach the others Kelly found Warden and shoved Thorul in her direction.

“Do what you want with her,” she said.

“Wait, wait you said you wouldn’t hurt me,” Thorul said trying to plead for her life.

“No I said I’d talk her out of snapping your neck,” Kelly said kneeling next to her cousin. “Whatever it is you plan to do with her Warden, do it fast. They need medical attention.”

“I won’t drag it out too much, but I do want to enjoy it,” Warden said.

“Go, before I change my mind.”

Warden grinned grabbing Thorul by the front of her blood soaked blazer. She had been waiting for this moment since the Kryptonian had thrown her into the burning building. Thorul had tossed her aside for someone who would never be loyal. She had dozens of ideas on how she could take Thorul out but most of them were drawn out and very painful. Unfortunately she didn’t have the time, she would have to help Kelly get the others back to her Earth. She also had to keep up her end of the deal and turn herself in. That left one option that Warden was happy to employ.

“If I remember correctly you hate heights,” Warden said.

Warden took off through the ceiling before Thorul could even scream. She kept climbing until the air around them started to chill. Thorul would suffer, falling took a long time, and she would have time to regret every betrayal. By the time they reached where Warden felt like dropping her Thorul had a death grip on her arms.

“Please don’t do this,” Thorul pleaded. “There’s still time to turn on them, to win. Together we can beat them.”

“Kelly has shown me more loyalty in a few days than you have over twenty years,” Warden growled. “I was her prisoner and she treated me better than you. Why should I show mercy when you never did?”

“Because I saved you from the Cult and their radical ideals,” Thorul said. “They would have killed you if not for me. I cared for you, I gave you a purpose.”

“You turned me into a killer,” Warden reminded her. “You sold me back to the Cult as a bargaining chip. You only care about yourself. This isn’t for the people you would hurt in the future. This is for me. Your death, is my reward.”

Thorul’s eyes widened when Warden released her grip on her. She was unable to hold on, she started to fall. Warden remained suspended above her as the Earth grew closer, watching with smug satisfaction. She reached out for Warden, hoping she would come to her rescue at the last minute. Warden never moved. The last thing she saw before her body slammed into the ground was the red glow of Warden’s kinesis and then the world went black.

Kelly lifted Lori into her arms, being careful not to jostle her too much. Her cousin had fallen unconscious again which wasn’t good with her concussion but Maggie was having a hard time keeping her awake. Kelly shook her slightly to get her to open her eyes but she didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything she could say, she had hurt her cousin, and she could have killed her. She wouldn’t blame Lori if she never wanted to speak to her again.

Alex was helping Maggie to her feet, they were both hurt which made it hard for them to support one another. They needed Warden but Warden was busy at the moment. Above them there was a dull thud. It could have been nothing, but Kelly suspected she knew exactly what it had been.

“What was that?” Maggie asked.

“You probably don’t want to know,” Kelly said.

She started down the corridor, over the bodies of all the guards and cult members that Warden had slaughtered. Alex’s device had been crushed when Kelly had slammed her into the wall. The other device was with Warden. They had thought it would be safer with her even though it ran the risk of Warden betraying them. Luckily Warden seemed uninterested in leaving them. She entered through the hole she had left in the ceiling, landing softly behind them. The light disappeared from around her as she joined them.

“Do me a favor and help them,” Kelly said.

Warden nodded slipping between Alex and Maggie to support them. “The device is in my pocket, if you can grab it Director Danvers.” Warden sounded different, less hostile. Alex didn’t trust it, but Kelly seemed to and at the moment that was enough for her. She retrieved the device from Warden and hit the button. In front of them a blue swirling portal opened. Kelly looked back at them. She had failed all of them, and now she had to face the others.

“Let’s go home,” she said before stepping through the portal.


	10. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay with the holidays and work and difficulties in my personal life it's been difficult to finish this chapter. But here it is. The following chapters will be what this story was originally supposed to be before I decided to extend the take down of Thorul. There's a few more chapters wrapping up everything.

The screen in front of him remained unchanged, a solid map with no pings, no warnings. He might have miscalculated or, and much more likely, the sensors were on the fritz. He could feel Lena staring at him, waiting for some indication the others had returned. He didn’t necessarily understand what she was feeling, but he knew she was worried. Kara hadn’t moved either, she remained on the table between him and Lena, acting as a barrier to keep them from arguing. She was much easier to read than Lena, typically she paced, but today Kara was biting her nails keeping a calm outside appearance for Lena’s sake.

“J’onn make sure the teams are ready, we should be getting a ping any second,” Brainy said. The data coming in was reading a shift in pressure not far from them. “Medical is on standby. I’m sure the three of you want to be first on the scene.”

The computer pinged, a small red circle pulsating around a location south of the building. It was a remote area, still under construction, making it the ideal location for two teams to go in without the watchful eyes of the public. He felt the rush of air as Kara grabbed Lena and left. J’onn stayed long enough to order the teams out then he went to join the others. Brainy would stay behind. He would monitor the situation from there, keep the attention of the public away. He would also prepare a cell in case they returned with Warden in custody. He would have to modify the cell to drain kinetic energy. He had his work cut out for him.

XXXXX

Kelly’s boots were the first to hit the ground on Earth-Prime straight into the muzzle of a rifle. She paused glancing up at the agent who held the rifle, his hands shook when he realized who he was pointing the gun at. He took a step back, returning to the semi-circle of agents around them. Behind her she heard the soft thud of Warden and her parents coming through the portal. This time when the agents caught sight of Warden they all raised their weapons and closed in on them.

“Hands up and get on the ground now!”

Warden glared at the agent who yelled the orders. “I can’t.” She was still supporting Alex and Maggie and didn’t want to let either of them go until someone could help them. She wasn’t in a position to run so the guns in her face were understandable but overkill.

“Stand down, all of you,” Kelly said in the most authoritative voice she could muster.

The agents looked at one another, then to Alex. She glanced at Kelly then nodded. “It’s okay, stand down.” They backed away but kept their guns trained on Warden. Alex was glad they weren’t taking risks, but it worried her how much trust Kelly was putting into Warden. Thorul had told her something before she died whatever it was had made Kelly less cautious.

“Get them both on gurneys,” Kelly said to no one in particular. “Alex has a broken hand, other possible injuries. Maggie broken ribs, hurry up.”

Kelly pushed her way through the line of agents, leaving Warden behind with Alex and Maggie. She was worried about her cousin who had lost consciousness again. She passed by Lena and Kara who both fell into step next to her as she made her way to the ambulance. She gently laid Lori on the gurney, careful not to jostle her too much she couldn’t do anything now. Lori needed yellow sun, she needed to be taken back to the DEO. She stepped away to give her aunts room. She was sure they had no idea Lori had gone with Alex and Maggie until it had been too late to do anything about it. Kelly turned away, unable to stomach looking at the damage she caused to her cousin any longer.

Warden was still standing with Alex and Maggie, unable to move with the mass of agents around her. None of them were brave enough to step forward to take her parents from Warden. It was frustrating, her parents were hurt, they needed medical attention, but the agents were too afraid. She pushed through them again, moving to take Maggie from Warden. She lifted her mother up, same as she had done Lori, knowing Maggie could walk but that she was slowly slipping into shock.

“Get your act together, all of you,” she growled at the agents when they refused to part. “The Director is injured and you’re standing around like Warden is holding a gun to her head. Man up and help her, then take Warden into custody, is that clear?”

They listened, two agents flipped the safety on their guns dropping it to their side to move in and help Alex. The other’s moved out of Kelly’s way, allowing her to take Maggie to the second ambulance that arrived on scene. She could hear one of the agents helping Alex to the third ambulance. Out of the three she was in the best shape and probably didn’t need help but she had gladly accepted it. Kelly knew that they all must have been exhausted. She handed Maggie off to the medics. She wasn’t too concerned about either of her parents, they were strong, tough, and they had gone through far worse. They didn’t need her hovering. Instead she would assist with Warden.

“You did this,” Lena had left Lori’s side to go after Warden, she was in the other kinetic's face. Her calm exterior had broken, leaving behind the rare image of an angry mother.

Warden for her part didn’t move, she stared straight ahead waiting for whatever it was Lena was going to do to her. Kelly wasn’t going to let it get too far. As soon as Lori woke up Lena would know that it hadn’t been Warden who hurt Lori, it had been her. She wanted her aunt to hear the truth from her. It wouldn’t hurt any less but it beat hiding it. Kelly moved between them pushing Warden back to give them some space.

“She had nothing to do with it aunt Lena,” Kelly said.

“Then who the hell did that to my daughter?”

Kelly glanced back towards Lori. She was now being loaded into the back of the ambulance by Kara and two medics. She looked back to Lena realizing she had never seen her aunt this angry. All of that rage was for her, Lena just wasn’t aware of it yet.

“I did.”

Lena faltered as if she hadn’t heard her right. “Don’t defend her Kelly.” It was all she could come up with to say. Denying her niece could do something like this was easier than believing Warden could be innocent.

“I’m not defending her,” Kelly said. “You should go with Lori, make sure she’s alright.”

Kelly nodded at one of the remaining agents silently telling her to escort Lena to the ambulance. Lena didn’t break eye contact with Kelly as the agent began to lead her away. She stared for the longest time almost as if she were trying to process what Kelly had just told her. Kelly felt Warden watching her too, trying to decipher what her next move would be. She wasn’t sure what she could do. Her parents were hurt, her aunts would never look at her the same again.

“You could have lied,” Warden had turned her attention to Lena, watching her with a mix of curiosity and disdain. Lena was the daughter of Lillian Luthor, and Warden had served her doppelganger for years. Kelly wondered how much Warden hated Lena. “You could have told her I had done it. At least she would still look at you the same.”

Kelly had considered it briefly. She loved her aunts but she had always been closer to Lena. They had a lot in common, having both been abused at a young age and again in adulthood from parents they thought they had left behind. Lena had given her a job and had supported her as the Flare even when Alex and Maggie hadn’t. Disappointing Lena was almost like disappointing her own parents and it hurt to see her so…defeated.

“She would have found out as soon as Lori wakes up,” Kelly was waving for yet another agent to join her. She took the restraints the agent had then nodded for them to back away. “And you don’t deserve to be blamed for things you haven’t done. You’re a monster but you are also a victim. What would I accomplish by blaming you?”

“So this is it then?”

Kelly nodded but instead of cuffing Warden she held out her hand. Warden glanced at her hand then up at Kelly. She took Kelly’s hand gripping just as tightly as Kelly gripped hers. The agent beside them glanced nervously back at another man that Warden didn’t recognize. He shook his head but didn’t do anything more.

“Thank you,” Kelly said and she meant it.

“For what?”

“Setting me free,” she said. “My father, Thorul, they’re gone and that’s thanks to you.”

“Yeah well I didn’t do it for you.”

Warden held out her other hand nodding for Kelly to restrain her and take her into custody. She had promised to turn herself in and she was going to ensure she kept up her end of the bargain. Even if Kelly was having second thoughts which Warden knew she was. Kelly nodded moving to pull Warden’s arms behind her back. There was an immediate change in the girl as she read Warden her rights, going from a tired individual to a stone cold agent. It was strange how easily she transitioned between being Flare and being Agent Danvers.

“Take her to the truck,” Kelly said, letting the agent next to her take over. “Wait for me at the DEO, I need to be the one to process her in.”

“Understood ma’am,” the agent said. She took hold of Warden’s arm, leading the restrained woman away.

Kelly let out a shaky breath. She had done her best to keep her composure but she was starting to break down. She didn’t like to cry in front of others, or at all really. Donovan had always made it seem like crying was a bad thing. Any sign of a tear on her face at three fucking years old and he would lock her in that damned closet. So much had happened in the past year, always piling up on her slowly chipping away at the wall she had built. She almost collapsed to her knees it was all suddenly overwhelming. Someone caught her, holding her up, keeping her composed. She glanced over her shoulder to see her grandpa J’onn.

He didn’t read minds without permission but sometimes, especially with her and Lori he did to make sure they were okay. Something told Kelly he had been keeping tabs on her mind since they first arrived back. He had realized that she was falling apart at the seams and he had come over to make sure she didn’t.

“They don’t hate you,” he said, forcing her to turn around to face him. “Lena and Kara don’t have the full story, once they do they will forgive you. So will Lori.”

“I don’t know if I want them too,” Kelly admitted. “I could have killed them… I almost did. I held a gun to my cousin’s head and nearly pulled the trigger… I beat my parents, I broke their bones and I would have shot them too, because I could barely break free of Thorul’s control…”

“You should ask Alex about an incident with a kryptonite infused sword, a thing called Myriad and your aunt Kara,” J’onn said, putting his arm around Kelly’s shoulder, his way of hugging her without making it look like he was doing so. “I think if you hear that you’ll understand that each one of us has had a moment where we were on the wrong side and our friends nearly paid greatly for it.”

“Even you?”

“There was a very brief period of time where Alex and I were being hunted by Lucy Lane because of me being, well, an alien leading a notoriously anti-alien government agency.”

“What is with this family?”

J’onn chuckled, glad that Kelly wasn’t completely trapped in her own head. He had other concerns but they could wait until they returned to the DEO and everyone was given a clean bill of health. Even Kelly needed to be checked over, she looked like she had been bitten by something and her neck was still dripping with blood. He was also aware that her leg was in bad shape and would need a quick once over by one of the techs before Lena could fix it.

“We should be getting back to the DEO,” he said. “I want you to get checked out as well.”

“Yeah I guess I can stick around long enough for that.”

“Leaving again?”

“There’s one last thing I have to take care of,” Kelly admitted. “I won’t be gone as long, a couple of month’s maybe.”

“You need to tell them this time,” he said as they started walking.

“I will.”

“Good, race you back?”

“You’re on old man.”

Kelly took off with J’onn not too far behind. She appreciated what he was trying to do. There was no hiding things from him and that was okay. She was glad he would learn what was wrong, he wasn’t going to let her close herself off and she was grateful for that. But she would be damned if she let him win.

Alex hadn’t given any of the agents trouble when they started checking her over. She knew that scared them more than if she had put up a fight. The truth was she was exhausted both mentally and physically. Her body hurt more than it ever had. She had no objections to the painkillers they gave her, no objections to the poking and prodding. She let them go about their work without a word. Even Maggie, who was always louder than her, lay quietly in the cot as they examined her wounds. The only noise she made was when they pressed on her broken ribs. Alex hadn’t paid attention to much else. She had seen Lena and Kara walk by with Lori, still unconscious, towards the room with the artificial yellow sun light. She hadn’t seen Kelly or Warden which concerned her but she pushed it down. There had been too many agents at the scene, including J’onn, for either of them to disappear without them knowing about it.

"Director Danvers?" Vasquez stood not far from her, tablet in hand. "Kelly took to processing Warden into custody but we still need your approval."

"I'll be there in a minute," Alex said. "Make sure Kelly stays in the building. I don't want her leaving."

"Yes ma'am."

Maggie waited for Vasquez to leave before sitting up on her cot to look at Alex. They were both thinking the same thing. If Kelly were to leave again they would let her, but she would have to make them a promise first. She wasn’t allowed to completely shut herself off any more. Not after what happened to them, to Lori. It wasn’t that they couldn’t trust their daughter. She had broken free of Thorul’s control on her own. They didn’t want to see her abandon her family because she was afraid of hurting them again.

“What are you going to say to her?” Maggie was having some trouble focusing because of the painkillers they had given her for her ribs. There wasn’t much they could do medically besides restrict activity and give her painkillers until her ribs healed. 

“What she needs to hear,” Alex said, moving off her cot. “I’m going to finish with Warden, then talk to Kelly. You, my love, get to stay in bed.”

“I will go wherever I want,” Maggie said as she laid back down. “So on my own free accord I’ll stay right here.”

“Mmhm.”

Alex took the long way to the cell block wanting to give herself more time to think. Her focus needed to remain on Warden until the processing was done. There wasn’t much she needed to do, sign a few papers, ensure the cell Warden was in would hold her. Brainy had probably reinforced the cell to dull or completely rid Warden of her photokinesis. They already had a cell like that, one that was currently being used to house a very angry very violent Mauler. It was the only cell strong enough to hold it, even White Martians weren’t as strong as one of those Maulers.

“Ma’am,” one of her agents greeted her as she came up to them.

“How’s the prisoner?”

“All restraints removed, locked in her cell,” he said. “She actually asked to speak with you. We told her that you would be down to finalize her...arrival.”

“Thank you,” she said, giving him and the other agents a curt nod. “All of you are dismissed, I need to speak with her alone.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said waving for the other agents to follow him out. “And your daughter is with J’onn in the training room. He wanted to make sure you knew.”

The agents moved in a single file around her, nodding as they went by. She nodded at a couple of them then moved to the cell Warden was in. Alex almost smiled seeing the woman who had caused her family so much pain in the state she was in. Before Warden had been this imposing figure clad in massive riot-style armor. It had been thick and bulky to house the device that controlled her and the device that fed her massive amounts of light. Now she was in nothing but a plane black tee and black tactical pants from her mission to the base. She would be given different clothes later for now she could stay in hers, even though they were stained in blood.

Warden stood still a foot away from the glass, her arms behind her back, shoulders set, feet shoulder width apart. She was stone cold, unbroken, but Alex knew it was only a face she put on. Warden may have been a cold-blooded murderer but she was a shell of who she had been under Thorul’s control. She watched Alex closely, waiting for her to speak before she did. 

Alex could see the resemblance looking at her now. She was older but she had a lot of the same features as Kelly. Hell a few years younger and she could have been Kelly. But she wasn’t, she was another Donovan from another Earth. It pissed her off that no matter what they did another one of them always showed up. Another reminder of the trauma Miles Donovan put her daughter through.

“Finally where you belong. In a cage where you can’t hurt anyone else.”

“I also can’t be hurt by anyone else,” Warden said. “Even in here I am finally free.”

“They said you wanted to talk?”

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “I wanted to apologize, I can't change what I've done and I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I wanted to say it.”

“Do you think I care?” Alex shook her head. “You crippled my daughter, you nearly killed my wife.”

Warden shrugged, finally relaxing and moving to the bunk that was bolted to the wall. “Like I said.”

Alex clenched and unclenched her fists. It made her angry how nonchalant Warden could be. She cared but she didn’t care, no matter what Alex said Warden would brush it off and take it in stride. Alex couldn’t understand it, after what Thorul had done to her, the mind control, the abuse, the betrayal she was still her own person when she should have been a lost soul.

“Why did you willingly turn yourself in after you killed Thorul?” Alex didn’t understand, she could have left. “Why not run? Keep your freedom? Why let Kelly bring you in?”

“Because she’s blood,” Warden said with a ghost of a smile. “And so far she is the only person who hasn’t betrayed me. I owe it to her.”

“You two aren’t friends,” Alex warned her. “Don’t think she has any sympathy for you.”

“I don’t,” Warden said. “I’m not delusional Director. I know what I am, you don’t have to remind me. Now if you don’t mind, I haven’t slept in days.”

J’onn patted the raised platform of the ring for Kelly to sit on. She wasn’t sure why he had picked the training room to look at her leg over the medbay. It also didn’t make sense why he was working on it instead of someone with prosthetic experience. She wasn’t complaining. He was keeping her out of the medbay and away from everyone. She appreciated that he wasn’t forcing her to face her parents yet. She rolled up her pant leg exposing the metal components of her leg. Some of the inner workings were struggling to adjust when she moved her toes and the area where her leg connected to the prosthetic was inflamed. 

“You’ve been hard on this,” he said, removing her boot. “I know you’ve been in pain. I’m sure i can fix that but I don’t know enough about the L-tech to fix the other problems you’ve been experiencing.”

“I just need to be able to walk,” Kelly said. “I’ll get maintenance from somebody once i get home.”

“Lena can fix it once you get back.”

“I don’t know if I want her to.”

J’onn sighed, he could still hear her thoughts though she was trying hard to hide them from him. She was afraid of Lena, afraid of what her aunt thought of her, what she might do to her. J’onn was sure Lena would never do anything to Kelly but he was worried Kelly would shut herself off to purposely distance herself. She was conflicted, she knew her parents would forgive her no matter what. But there was a fear in her that her aunts and cousin wouldn’t and she felt better making it impossible for them to forgive her. She didn’t think she deserved it. J’onn was no expert but maybe hearing it from Alex would put her on the right track.

“This leg is a mess Kel.” Something clicked into place when he twisted one of the components near the ankle.

“There was a car,” Kelly admitted. “It almost hit this little boy, I jumped in front of it to shield him, knowing I’d do more damage to the car than it would do to me. Unfortunately the tire caught my leg and it's been sending incorrect signals ever since.”

“You should have come home.”

“So you could make me stay?” Kelly shook her head. “I had to do this gramps… I didn’t think it would lead to this.”

“You did good,” he said reconnecting a wire Kelly hadn’t been able to reach. “That should help but this does need maintenance.”

“I’ll get it, I promise,” Kelly pulled her boot back on pushing the pant leg back down.

She pushed herself up curling her toes to test the responsiveness of the prosthetic. She could feel it burning up her thigh which was good, before there had been no feeling except for pain. J’onn nodded, clearly satisfied that he had helped in some way. She moved in to hug him, he didn’t hesitate to hug her back. She had always liked getting hugs from him, they always made her feel better, she supposed that was what grandpa’s were supposed to do. 

“I’m gonna go outside, get some fresh air,” she said after she backed up. “Let mom know if you see her, I want to say goodbye this time.”

“I will,” he said.

She nodded and left heading for the balcony. It was one place that the Danvers girls always went to cool off or think. Alex spent hours there from time to time after difficult days. Kara stayed out there when she had days she had lost or an innocent person was hurt. It was their spot to be alone, to just exist. Kelly had adopted it too after the incident that nearly killed her. She came here whenever Alex yelled at her for being reckless, whenever Maggie told her it wasn’t her responsibility to protect the city. They were right to a degree, she had been a teen when it started but she was almost twenty-three. They couldn’t stop her now if they wanted to. But maybe she would turn in the cape so to speak. The days events had proven to her that she was no hero, maybe she never had been. It was the stark reality of her actions. She had allowed Warden to kill without any remorse for doing so. She had wanted Thorul to die. Hell she wanted Thorul’s blood on her hands, she had wanted to do the exact same thing to Thorul.

“Hey.”

Kelly didn’t turn around, she knew her mothers voice. “Hey.” It was her way of inviting Alex to join her. She did, leaning up against the concrete railing next to Kelly. They stayed quiet for the longest time, Kelly watching the streets below and Alex staring up at the sky. When she had been younger, maybe six or seven, Alex had taken her out to the desert near where the old DEO base was, to look at the stars. Out there the sky was so clear with the city so far away there was an unobstructed view to all of the stars. It was a favorite memory of hers. Her mom seemed to be so happy naming constellations for her. It was something Kara and Alex had done when they were younger, it only made sense it made her happy doing the same with her daughter.

“You’re taking this pretty hard,” Alex said. “There were no serious injuries. Maggie is even disappointed you hit softer than you hug. She said something about teaching you better.”

Kelly chuckled, turning to look at her mom. She had a bandage on her nose, over the cut caused by Kelly breaking it. “I never have beaten either of you in a fair fight,” she said, turning fully to face Alex. “I could have killed you.” 

“But you didn’t.”

“But I wanted to.”

She wasn’t one for crying, it made her feel vulnerable, but in that moment the admittance was too much for her to stop the tears from falling, blurring her vision. She felt Alex’s arms around her a second later, holding her up. Kelly returned the hug, gripping her mom so tight it was painful. Alex didn’t mind Kelly needed something to anchor herself to.

“I’ve got you kiddo, it’s okay…”

Kelly shook her head, continuing to sob into her mothers shoulder. It wasn’t okay at all. Being controlled was one thing she couldn’t have done anything until she broke free. But there was a part of her that wanted to give in, give up all control and let Thorul win. She had wanted to hurt them all, her parents, her cousin, Warden, even Thorul, all of them. She had seen it when she held the gun to Lori, her cousin had believed she would kill her. She almost had if her hand hadn’t twitched, if she hadn’t grabbed onto that one shred of humanity she had left.

“I’m so sorry…” Kelly sobbed, “for everything...it shouldn’t have...I should have died back in that warehouse. Then none of this would have happened.”

"Hey, hey no don't start talking like that," Alex said, pulling away to look her daughter in the eye. "Don't you ever say that Kel."

Alex wiped the tears from Kelly’s face forcing her daughter to look at her. “None of this is your fault.” She had thought that Kelly had handled the warehouse incident too well. She had struggled during her recovery but she had kept it to herself. Alex hadn’t realized how deep Kelly’s guilt went, the last year was her attempt to make up for what happened at the warehouse. She felt like her father’s actions were her responsibility, which they weren’t, but Kelly was like Alex taking on the weight of the world and blaming herself for any inconvenience. 

“I’m leaving again,” Kelly said, wiping her own eyes on her sleeve. “I think it's best if I’m gone for awhile.”

“I may not agree because you being alone in this state worries me,” Alex started, “but I’m not going to stop you. All I ask is you don’t do this alone. You either keep in touch with me and Maggie or you take Nick with you.”

“I think I can keep you in the loop this time,” Kelly said. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Nick, she did, but she didn’t want him to see her like this. He would try to fix it even though he couldn’t. “I shouldn’t be gone as long.”

“Can I ask where you plan to go?”

“Over this last year I wasn’t just searching for Warden,” Kelly explained. “I was looking for my birth mother. I wanted answers, I needed to know about my powers and...and why she left me with him. I found her. Sort of. Hannah Donovan fell off the radar twenty years ago, no death record no nothing. She had changed her name.”

“That’s what you wanted from Thorul,” Alex realized. “You wanted her name.”

Kelly nodded nervously rubbing her hands together. “I know who she is now and I plan to talk to her,” she said. “If she’ll talk to me.” She didn’t know how her mom would feel knowing she was going after her biological mother, even if it was just for answers. Alex had not only rescued her but had raised her as her own. She had given Kelly a home, a loving family, everything she could have ever needed. And there Kelly was hunting down her birth mother with the only excuse of wanting answers.

“Do you need help figuring out where she is?”

“No, I’ve got it covered.”

“When are you going to leave?”

“As soon as I say bye to you and mom.”

Alex pulled her in for another hug which Kelly happily returned. She felt a third hand on her back and before she knew it Maggie was hugging her too, having escaped from the medbay. Kelly twisted so she could put her arm around Maggie trying not to squeeze her to tight since her ribs were broken.

“I’m going to miss you guys…”

“You do fly faster than Kara,” Maggie reminded her. “We’re never that far away.”

“I promise I’ll call this time,” she said. “And I’ll keep you updated. Six months max, there’s a couple of other things I have to make sure I take care of.”

“Such as?”

“Returning a car I stole.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Maggie said, shaking her head.

Kelly took a step back, knowing that if she held off any longer they would convince her to stay. Alex and Maggie closed the gap she had left between them, taking a hold of the others hand. Kelly smiled, seeing them made her feel a little better, she would miss them a lot. She jumped up onto the ledge turning to face them again.

“I love you guys,” she said. “See you in a few months.”

“Love you too Kel,” Alex said. “Be careful.”

“Take care kiddo,” Maggie said.

Kelly nodded, smiling at them one last time, then took a step back off of the ledge. She let herself fall for a second before her powers took over and she took off over the buildings. Leaving the city behind this time felt better, less like she was betraying her family. The scars she had left would take time to heal, her aunts and cousin may never forgive her but at least they were alive and safe. Warden was in custody, Thorul was dead, there was no one left trying to come after them at least until the next big bad came around. She would come back in a few months once everyone had time to recover and maybe just maybe she could rebuild the trust she had broken.

Alex and Maggie remained on the balcony until Kelly was out of sight. It was easier this time, watching her go, knowing for sure she would come back. Alex wasn’t sure how she should feel about Kelly going to find her birth mother but she knew it was important to her daughter so she wouldn’t stop her. She didn’t know how Maggie felt about it either but she was glad Maggie hadn’t tried to stop Kelly.

“We should go check on Lori,” Alex said, turning towards Maggie. “Maybe let them know Kelly will be gone for awhile.”

“How do you think Lena is going to react learning that Kelly left without getting her leg fixed again,” Maggie asked.

“She is going to blow a fuse,” Alex said chuckling. “Maybe we don’t tell them just yet.”

“Good idea.”

Maggie leaned up to kiss Alex, her wife kissed her back. Sharing one last quiet moment before they went back in to deal with the aftermath of their last mission. They could finally breathe now that it was over, a few minutes alone wasn’t going to hurt them. Neither of them had rested in over a year, both had taken extra shifts, whatever they could do to distract themselves from Kelly’s absence. Maybe once Kelly got the answers she was looking for they could be a family again. Until then they would have to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we meet Addison and see how the rest of the Danvers are dealing with Kelly's extended absence.


End file.
